1104 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
the past five or six years throughout Australia, is inevitably 
marked by the withdrawal of pupils at an earlier age, and also by 
a considerable lowering of the scale of fees. This is a cause that 
is inherent in our present system of civilisation, and is incapable 
‘of removal by any conceivable reform. But even in prosperous 
times similar results are brought about by excessive competition. 
Private schools spring up like mushrooms, without restriction, and 
without any guarantee of efficiency. Any individual with sufficient 
enterprise or lmpudence may open a school; and it too often 
happens that pupils are attracted by low fees or blatant self- 
advertisement, or convenience of situation, without any inquiry 
into the competence or character of the teacher. But there is also 
the competition of Government schools, which presses heavily upon 
those Denominational and private institutions which are undeniably 
efficient. Where the Government was first in the field, as in 
Queensland, there is no room for complaint, and there are probably 
many persons who regard the Queensland system as almost an 
ideal one ; but in New South Wales, where the churches, with 
great self-sacrifice, covered the ground which the State declined 
to occupy, the subsequent creation of Government High Schools, 
with a relatively low scale of fees was, and is, felt to be very 
unfair competition. There may possibly be room for both types 
of schools ; but if so, the only equitable policy would be for the 
State to exact as high fees for secondary teaching as the self- 
supporting Denominational Schools are forced by their necessities 
to maintain. 
The present financial position of secondary schools may be 
briefly indicated, before suggestions are offered towards reform. 
(1) First, the only possibility of profit, either for individuals or 
school-councils, is from boarding-schools ; and even here there isa 
limit of numbers and of fees, below which even a boarding school 
cannot be remunerative. (2) In the second place, most. efficient 
schools are kept efficient only by rigid economy. In almost every 
case the staff of assistants is maintained at the lowest possible 
salary consistent with efficiency. Governing bodies are at times 
found to adopt expedients which are unworthy of men controlling 
education. For instance, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the 
headmastership, the appointment has been sometimes bestowed 
upon a private schoolmaster of little reputation and mediocre 
attainments, for the sole reason that he already had a number of 
boarders whom he undertook to bring with him to the new school. 
Tn another school, a Denominational one of good standing, the 
council, in a time of depression, passed a resolution to dismiss the 
married men and substitute single men at lower salaries. This 
heartless plan was not actually carried out, partly through circum- 
stances, partly through a somewhat tardy feeling of compunction ; 
but the policy deliberately sanctioned illustrates the expedients to 
