116 Timehri. 
A radical change was at once made, and a Board of Education was established 
to have complete control of educational affairs. Of this Board the Governor was 
President, the Inspector of Schools the Secretary, and the five members were 
nominated by the Governor, according to the Ordinance. Not only had the 
Governor a casting vote, but all acts done at any meeting of the Board in his 
absence required his sanction and approval in writing. The number of children 
on the registers in 1852 was 10,877 ; in 1862 the number was returned as 12,425. 
Mr. Austin’s first report, showing what was the general standard of e'ementary 
education under his predecessor’s regime, set forth that “‘the ma ority of 
children were able to read clearly and accurately, and with tolerable 
correctness of pronounciation; as a rule the parts of speech were known 
and the children could parse a simple sentence fairly”; “‘ penmanship was 
generally good”; “few could write an easy passage of dictation without 
blundering ” ; “ very little indeed was known about History, but more atten- 
tion was paid to Geography ” ; “ more than one-half of the sums which were 
set on the day of examination were hopelessly wrong, and of the remainder 
many were carelessly done.” The important subject of Needlework had 
received little or no attention in the majority of schools. Mr. Austin seems in 
consequence to have adopted the plan of inspecting every aided school twice a 
year, and the development of this was the change in 1870 to the present system 
of payments by results of examinations that caused the non-participation of 
from 20 to 30 per cent. of the schools in the grant, increased the public expendi- 
ture on education from $56,809 in 1862 to $93,724 in 1874, and lowered the 
average attendance to 9,885 of 20,000 names on the registers of the 170 State- 
aided schools. So great was the inefficiency of the schools that a Commission 
of Enquiry was decided upon. Let it be remembered that the Board of Educa- 
tion under which these things happened was composed entirely of Government 
officials, with the Governor as President. 
Accordingly in 1874 Sir James Longden, the Governor of the colony, appointed 
a Commission of seventeen members to enquire into and report upon the condi- 
tion of public education in the colony, and to make recommendations that would 
secure the youth of the colony a liberal education. This Commission, by a 
majority, decided that the system of voluntary schools aided by the Government, 
and superintended by local patrons or managers, best suited the needs of the 
colony ; they found that attendance should be made compulsory ; they decided 
that the Austin system of payment by examination results had lowered the 
standard of qualification of the teachers, and caused incompetency again to be 
prevalent in their ranks. They proposed that in future only certificated 
teachers should be employed ; that each class of certificate should have a money 
value attached, and that the grant for each class should be annually increased 
according to a fixed scale for a certain number of years on the report of the 
Inspector of Schools that the school was being successfully conducted ; that 
Bishop’s College should be acquired by the Government to be turned alto- 
gether into a general Training Institution of an undenominational character 
under the immediate control of the Board of Education ; that the Board of 
Education should be made more representative ; that the Government should 
acquire Queen’s College, and have a public institution for secondary education. 
