V.—TEACHERS. (Hansard, 11 June 1872)

§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIR
moved, in page 20, line 5, after "schools," leave out to end of clause, and insert— And every appointment shall be during the pleasure of the School Board, who shall assign to them such salaries as they think fit: Provided, that the principal teacher of every public school, in addition to such fees and such sum from the Parliamentary Grant as may be agreed on between the School Board and such teacher, shall receive annually from the local rates not less than ten pounds if his certificate of competency, as hereinafter required, is of the lowest class or degree, and not less than fifty pounds if his certificate is of the highest class or degree, and not less than such sum above ten pounds as shall be prescribed in the minutes of the Scotch Education Department, as hereinafter provided, if his certificate is of an intermediate class or degree. The hon. Gentleman said: The object of this Amendment is to preserve for Scotland the advantages of the certificate system which it at present possesses. I must remind the Committee that, though both English and Scotch inspected schools are examined by the Revised Code, Scotch schools are not paid by it, but are still paid and governed by the old certificate Code. Scotland has hitherto resisted the application of the Revised Code, and has as yet not the least inclination to go under its yoke. Government payments to schools in Scotland are made in proportion to the class of certificate which the teachers hold. These payments vary from £15 on the lowest grade, to £30 on the highest. The system, at the present moment, in Scotland is this—Suppose the managers of a school desire a teacher, they apply to the Committee of 1622 Privy Council for his services, and the Committee make it a condition that the managers shall contribute an equal payment by subscriptions, and guarantee a like amount from fees. Thus, if the teacher's certificates carry a payment of £20 from the Government, the school managers must provide £20 by subscriptions, and, in most cases, must guarantee a third sum of £20 by fees. That is the actual code ruling of Scotch inspected schools at the present moment, and no one alleges that it works badly. In fact, examination by the Revised Code proves that Scotch schools have a considerably larger percentage of passes than English schools. Now, what I propose by this Amendment simply is to retain for Scotland the advantages of its present certificate system, without preventing the Government from adopting the Revised Code in future, for I bow to the inevitable. My proposal is nothing more than that ratepayers, or their elected representatives, should place themselves in the position of existing school managers; for, as they assume their functions, they ought to contribute to the salaries of teachers, as school managers have always hitherto done without a murmur. The Lord Advocate will no doubt say that my proposal is only a minimum salary under another name. No doubt it is. It is a minimum salary, not on a dead level for all teachers, whether good or bad; but one dependent for its amount on the varying qualifications of teachers. Why should we destroy the certificate system in Scotland merely to please the Committee of Council's ideas of uniformity? I do not ask for one penny from Imperial taxation. I only ask for power for the Scotch ratepayers to apply the inevitable payment of the rates in the direction which past experience has shown to be most productive in results. Nor will this mode of payment add one shilling to the rates, for these must be forthcoming to an amount which will supplement the fees so as to equal the Government grant, otherwise no grants will be given. To understand this, let me remind the House that the Scotch Commissioners have shown that average attendances in each country school in Scotland amount to about 70 children, and that their average fees are 8s. 8d. Now, the cost of education is 30s. per child, so that the expense of our typical school is £105. To meet this the school, 1623 if entirely successful, may win the maximum of 15s. per head from Government grants, or £52; but, as a condition for obtaining this sum, it must provide an equal sum from fees and rates. But the fees are only £30, so that the inevitable rates must be £22. Now, I should be exceedingly satisfied with the working of my Amendment if it produced an average sum of £22 on the certificates. So that it is obvious the rates need not be increased by a single shilling, and the current expenses, beyond the teacher's remuneration, might be met by an imposition of the school board upon the fees and the Government grant. Besides, the scheme, as I propose it, would come very gradually into operation. It would not apply at all to the present occupants of parochial schools, nor would it extend to denominational schools. It would, therefore, be of very gradual introduction, and would thus give ample time to show its effects before they became very extended. I hope the Committee will clearly grasp this fact—that the Amendment does not operate at all on Imperial taxation, and that it does not add a shilling to local taxation, but only directs that into old channels which experience has proved to be very useful to the interests of the country. Who, then, objects to the proposed Amendment? Not the schoolmasters; for they have petitioned in its favour. Not the ratepayers; for they have sent up no Petitions against it, and various important bodies have petitioned in its favour. But, though I have not yet heard of any public objections, I know the official objections which are likely to be brought forward against the adoption of this Amendment. Thus, we may be told that the scheme will be to the disadvantage of teachers, by limiting the area of selection of those who obtain a high class of certificate, with a proportionately high amount fixed on it. I may here mention that my very highest sum is £50 less than the average fixed salary of parochial teachers at the present moment, and that the lowest is the paltry sum of £10. What reason is there for saying that a high certificate carrying a higher payment will prevent a teacher being in demand? None that I know of, except that it may be convenient to use it for the purpose of to-day's debate. Experience is all the other way, and of that there is ample, for Scotland enjoys the 1624 certificate system at present. Now, it is well known that the active demand at the present time is for teachers with highly-paid certificates, and the lowest demand is for teachers with cheap certificates. If to the results of this experience it is replied—"That may be true at the present time, with school managers of culture and intelligence, but it may not be so with local boards elected by ratepayers," then I say that is a condemnation of the scheme of local boards proposed by this Bill. The Lord Advocate ought to be the last man to doubt them, for he has always contended that they will be well qualified to fulfil every duty of school managers. If the point of the objection be, that a highly-qualified teacher has a smaller number of situations open to him than an inferior teacher, that is a truism applicable to all such cases, The Professor of an University has fewer places open to him than the teacher of a secondary school, and the latter than the teacher of an elementary school. But this fact only operates disadvantageously, when there is a greater supply of highly-qualified teachers than there is a demand for them. That is not the case with our Scotch elementary schools at present, and it will be the faulty operation of this Bill if it be so in the future. Highly-certificated teachers are in greater demand than supply. Besides, as I have already mentioned, the system is not rigid but elastic. Both the fees and the grant go into the school fund, out of which the local board can readily adjust the conditions of the teacher's remuneration. Recollect, that I am not proposing a new thing, but only desiring to maintain the present certificate system, which has worked so well, both in the interests of schools and of their teachers. Surely a class of men are generally alive to their own interests, and when they want a continuance of the system, we need not be afraid that we are doing them an injury. It is not for the teacher's interest, but for the public interest that I press this Amendment. Under the English Revised Code the qualifications of teachers have much deteriorated. It is actually the case that, before 1857, a pupil teacher passed a higher examination than a principal teacher now requires to pass. Such a deterioration in our teachers would be fatal to Scoth education, because it is the custom in Scotch schools to teach secondary subjects of 1625 instruction. By maintaining the certificate system, with payments augmenting according to qualifications, you induce the teachers to study higher subjects, and there is little fear that when they possess the knowledge they will refuse to impart it. Thus you will prevent that lowering of the qualifications of teachers which has within the last few weeks been specially reported upon by the Royal Commission on Science. After that damaging Report, the qualifications of English teachers must be raised. I now ask you not to allow the qualifications of Scotch teachers to be lowered by a similar operation of the Revised Code, and thus to render it unnecessary for some Royal Commission, 10 years hence, to remonstrate with the Government for having allowed them to sink so low. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate, in his anticipatory answer of my speech last Friday, told us that we have the security that local boards will desire the continuance of higher subjects in schools, and will therefore select highly qualified men to teach them. If the constitution of the local boards insured the same class of men upon them as at present, no doubt this would be the case. Hitherto they have consisted of heritors and ministers, both classes having been educated in public schools and Universities. These men of culture and intelligence appreciated the value of higher subjects, and liked to see them in the schools under their care. But what security have you that the new boards will have members of an equal amount of education? In large towns this may be so; in small towns and country districts it is not probable that the ratepayers will secure members of equal culture. There has been already some experience on this subject in Scotland, and I will describe it, especially as I am about to quote the words of the Lord Advocate's own secretary, when he was Assistant Commissioner to the country districts under the Scotch Education Commission. Mr. Sellar says in his official Report— It is no exaggeration to say that from the most southern part of Scotland to John o'Groat's we were met with the same outcry—'Save us from local boards.' He shows that 48 per cent of the schools managed by local boards were unsatisfactory; and he continues— The real worth of a teacher is not the point that is solely regarded by electing bodies of this 1626 kind. They know that they are not qualified to decide upon a teacher's merits, and they fly off on some course which they think they can understand. Possibly, by this time, the Lord Advocate may have converted his secretary from his former opinions to those more consonant with his own; but I hold by the experience and fresh impressions of the Assistant Commissioner, and think he was right. I agree with him that local boards in country districts, though less so in towns, will require to be educated to their duties, and are not likely, for some time at least, to be good judges of the qualifications of teachers I wish, therefore, to give to the teachers themselves a motive and a stimulus to higher qualifications by maintaining that certificate system under which they now work in Scotland. It will do no one any harm; it does not render more expensive or more complex the central administration; it does not do more than give to the inevitable payment of rates that direction which experience has already proved to be productive of admirable results. It helps to maintain the characteristics of Scotch education, and prevents one uniform Anglicising of our schools, regardless of our national peculiarities formed by the experience of centuries, and which ought not to be thrust aside by the 12 months' experience which England has of a national system. For these reasons, I do hope the Committee will support me in carrying this Amendment, upon which I must divide if it be not accepted by the Government.

§ THE LORD ADVOCATE
said, it was certainly due to his hon. Friend, who 1627 had paid so much attention to this subject, that he should give his best and most earnest consideration to any Amendment proposed by him. He confessed, however, that he could not give his assent to the Amendment. It seemed to him to be open to those objections which he stated against the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Glasgow (Mr. Gordon) on a former occasion. It was also objectionable, as being not only not in favour of, but directly, and very hardly, and even harshly detrimental to schoolmasters; and he was not persuaded that that view was unsound because schoolmasters had petitioned in favour of the Amendment. It did not apply to any existing schoolmasters at all, and he was doubtful whether those who had petitioned in its favour had altogether appreciated it. It regarded candidates for the office of schoolmaster, and provided for degrees in certificates of competency 1st, 2nd, and 3rd—the 1st being the highest. It was the universal experience that masters who had attained the highest certificates were not necessarily in practice the best, the most successful, and most efficient teachers. That was not true with respect to teachers obtaining first class certificates any more than it was true with respect to professional men or men engaged in business, that those who had received the highest honours at school or college were always the most successful in the prosecution of their profession or business. He quite admitted that the probability was that it might be, and that the teacher with a high class certificate would succeed better than a teacher with a low class certificate; but the advantage of a certificate to him was as an introduction and as a recommendation to begin with; but after he had entered upon the office of teacher, he would succeed or fail, obtain a higher or lower remuneration, continue in or leave his employment, according to his success; and it did not at all necessarily depend upon the class of his certificate. Now, this Amendment—unless he quite misread it—created a statutory disability against teachers holding a certificate of a high class, because it rendered it illegal for them to expect employment as teachers upon such terms as they could get, and were willing and anxious to take. Suppose there was a vacancy in the office of teacher in a public school 1628 in Scotland, and the school board being able to give a salary of, say, £120 a-year, advertised the vacancy, and invited candidates to bring forward their testimonials. According to the best calculations that could be made, £100 out of the £120 would be contributed by the fees and the grants, leaving only £20 to be paid out of the rates. They could not, therefore, have a first class schoolmaster with a first class certificate. He could not apply for the situation, because he was prohibited by Act of Parliament from taking it, if this Amendment were passed, unless £50 was paid out of the rates. And let him, therefore, be ever so willing and anxious to take the place, and let the board be ever so willing and anxious to have him, he was yet prohibited by law from entering into that contract, and they must take a schoolmaster on a lower certificate, because, to satisfy the condition of the statute as it would stand in this Amendment, £20 out of the rates would only secure a teacher with a lower class certificate. In addition, therefore, to all the evils which would arise from interfering with the just rights of schoolmasters and school boards to make their own bargains, they would have this evil, which he considered would be a monstrous hardship to the teachers, that they would say to him—"We prohibit you from taking any situation unless you can get £50 out of the rates." Upon these grounds he must oppose the Amendment.

MR. SAMUELSON
, as a Member of the Commission which had been referred to, supported the Amendment. If there was to be no value attached to the certificates of the various grades, what was the use of a certificate at all? He hoped the hon. Member would make a stand upon this—that until they were better informed upon the subject, they would not allow the degradation of schoolmasters to proceed.

§ MR. M'LAREN
said, he held in his hand a letter from a heritor of a very small parish, the population of which was under 200 souls. There were 15 children at the parish school, and the emoluments of the teacher were £70 a-year, and had applied for an additional £8. He pointed out that in this instance the Amendment would not work beneficially; nor, in another instance, of a parish in the northern counties, 1629 which was 60 miles long. There were in this parish 60 schools, and the Amendment would fix an arbitrary high rate for the payment of masters of each one of them.

§ MR. CRAUFURD
said, the Committee had already decided against fixing a minimum salary. This was a proposal to fix a minimum salary, though at greater inconvenience to the teacher and the scholar.

§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIR
, in reply, said, that in order to meet the cases of the Highland districts, he began with as low a salary as £10. In answer to the Lord Advocate's objection, he contended that the fees and grants hinged on the roughly elastic method of making whatever salaries the school boards liked to have. He should press his Amend to a division.

§ MR. GORDON
approved of the Amendment of his hon. Friend, and would give it his vote, although it did not go so far as he could wish.