FIRST THIRTY YEARS OF SCHOOLS, &C. 309 
recommend the immediate appointment by your Excellency of an In- 
speétor of Schools. The want of statistical information on the subject 
of Education is so severely felt by your Commissioners that they con- 
sider an Inspeétor cannot too soon be deputed to visit all the Schools in 
the various distrifts of the Colony, and to report upon their condition 
and prospetts. 
Your Commissioners would respeétfully suggest, that the present 
per caput allowance for licensed Schoolmasters should be discontinued 
from the goth of June next, when it is hoped the new plan might be 
brought into operation, and that after that period the funds required 
for educational purposes should be raised, partly by a colonial grant 
and partly by a local assessment upon the parents and guardians of all 
children, whether attending school or not, between the ages of five 
and twelve. This assessment your Commissioners would fix at 
$3 per annum for each child, of which $2 should go towards the 
remuneration of the Schoolmaster of the district, leaving $1 for general 
purposes. 
It seems highly advisable that a Central Board of Education should 
be continued, at which the Inspector should have a seat and a voice at 
its deliberations, but no vote, and that local Boards should also be 
appointed. These might consist of an indefinite number according to 
the peculiar circumstances of the distrift, and in the proportion of 
two to one might be composed of Elective and Official Members; the 
former to be chosen by the school rate-payers, and the latter to be 
nominated by your Excellency, and to include one Minister of each 
religious body having a licensed school within the distri, and also 
any Stipendiary Magistrate or Justice of the Peace resident therein. 
The ex officio members to sit for life or until they leave the distriét, and 
the others to be chosen at triennial elections, which might be held one 
month before the termination of the sittings of the existing Board. 
Occasional vacancies to be filled up within one month of their being 
reported to your Excellency by the Central Board. 
The Schoolmasters, your Commissioners consider, should for the 
future be licensed by the Central Board, and should be paid by a minimum 
of $250 out of the general funds of the Colony, and by the extra 
Your Commissioners are of opinion, that as a general rule, schools 
remuneration of $2 per caput out of the local rates before mentioned. 
should be established at or within a mile of every village, contain- 
ing at least 50 inhabited houses, and also in such other localities as 
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