i88 3 J 
On Technical Education. 
95 
payment of the Government grants to schools ; on the 26th 
of that month there appeared in the same newspaper the 
following letter 
“ The Payment of Science Grants. 
Sir, — May I be permitted to supplement the letter of 
“ A School Manager” to point out that the delay in the 
payment of Science Grants is even worse than in Elementary 
Schools. Science Classes commenced in September, 1880, 
were examined in May, 1881, the results published in July, 
and the payments made in December. Most Science 
teachers are paid solely out of the grant. Is it not sufficient 
that teachers alone, of all the professions, should voluntarily 
undertake a whole session’s work without touching payment, 
but they must have a gratuitous addition of five months’ 
waiting after the results are declared ? One Science teacher, 
who has since died, whose enfeebled constitution needed the 
support, and whose nervous temperament chafed against the 
delay of his grant (some £40) received it on the Friday 
before Christmas-day. 
“I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
“ Science Teacher.” 
Even if the uncertainty of receiving any payment at all, 
and the uncertainty when it will be paid even when it has 
been awarded, affected only the Teacher and not the Taught, 
it must be admitted, I think by every one, that a system 
which involves all this uncertainty about the teacher’s pecu- 
niary remuneration requires at least some reforming ; for it 
can scarcely be doubted that this uncertainty must adt un- 
favourably in securing the best talent, and that it will only 
be adopted as a last resource for making a living. But these 
uncertainties must more or less, according to the tempera- 
ment of the teacher, unfit him for discharging as efficiently 
as he would otherwise do, if his mind was at ease with 
regard to pecuniary matters, the duties of his calling. But 
we will now pass on to the defedts and deficiencies of the 
system as they more immediately affedt the taught, and there- 
fore through them the nation. 
Written examinations are mainly the Department’s tests 
of the candidate’s knowledge of the Indudtive Sciences : the 
teacher, to have any chance at all in securing any payment 
from the Department, must, on that very account, teach his 
pupils to pass ; whether they know the subjedt they are 
taught must necessarily be to the teacher, as far as his 
