a 'National Education Establishment. 697 



that was wanted for the garden department; and any naturalists that might 

 be in the parish would feel a pleasure in sending articles to the museum. 



III. Teachers. — Every school would require a properly qualified master 

 and mistress, with assistants and occasional teachers, according to circum- 

 stances. Both master and mistress should obtain their places by competi- 

 tion, and be removable at the pleasure of the vestry of the parish. They 

 should have a fixed salary from the parish, independently of a house rent 

 free, and certain quantities of provisions, either delivered in kind, or paid 

 in their money value. The fixed salary, we think, should not be less, in the 

 present value of money, than 200/. to the master, and 200/. to the mistress, 

 in order to produce efficient teachers. It ought to be the same in every 

 parish in the empire, in order that there might be no temptations, but such 

 as would involve in them additional activity, for a teacher to remove from 

 one parish to another. No living ought to be lower, and no teacher ought 

 to be allowed to hokl two livings. The hopes of advancement to a teacher 

 would be, those of being the successful competitor for a parish where there 

 were probably several acres of ground attached to the school and school- 

 house; or where there were a great many pupils, and consequently a 

 considerable amount of sessional and premiiun fees; or where he might be 

 handsomely paid for performing the offices of religion or philosophy to some 

 sect or partj'^ on Sundays ; or where he might take boarders. But the 

 greatest inducement of all to this profession would be what we should wish 

 established by law ; viz. that every teacher, after a certain number of years' 

 service, say thirty years in any one parish, or forty years in any number of 

 parishes, ought to be allowed to retire on a third of his or her fixed salar}'. 

 The retiring salary should always be paid by the parishes in proportion to 

 the time which the retiring teacher may have lived in them. Thus, if a man 

 had been head teacher in three parishes, ten years in each, he would be 

 entitled, on retiring, to receive an equal portion of his salary from each of 

 these three parishes. The fees ought to be so much per annum, according 

 to the age of the child, and so much in addition half-yearly, according to the 

 number of premiums awarded at the examinations of the vestry. Consider- 

 ing that the head teachers would always have a house rent free, fuel, light, 

 water, and the produce of the garden, they would in every case be in easy 

 circumstances, as such men ever ought to be ; and it would be their interest 

 to get as many scholars as they could, for the sake of the fees of the session ; 

 and to cultivate these scholars to as high a degree as possible, for the sake of 

 the fee on the premiums to be awarded by the vestry half-yearly. The assist- 

 ants should be paid a fixed salary, to be agreed on by the master and the 

 vestry, and the hope of advancement to the general assistants would be 

 that of succeeding to vacancies in head teacherships. The hope of advance- 

 ment to teachers of particular branches, such as drawing, fencing, swimming, 

 military tactics, &c., would be that of succeeding to schools where larger 

 salaries were given for these branches. 



We do not consider it necessary, as in Germany, to establish colleges on 

 purpose to supply teachers ; because the system once commenced, an 

 effectual demand would soon produce the requisite supply. We would also 

 make it legal for the clergyman of any parish, to give up his duties as 

 clergyman, and commence on the salaries and duties of parish teacher. In 

 many cases the teacher might act both as schoolmaster and clergyman, with 

 the exception of the dutiesofregisteringbirths, marriages, and deaths, which 

 we would intrust to the vestry clerk, under the superintendence of the vestry, 

 of which the teacher should always be a member, in right of his profession. 



There ought to be one system of discipline for all the schools, and, as far 

 as we have been able to observe and reflect on the subject, a modification 

 of that adopted in Latymer's free school at Edmonton is the most suitable. 



In conformity with this plan, a ledger may be kept, in which every child 

 may occupy seven pages for the last seven years it is to be at school. The 



