should be free from molestation: as soon as they chose to come under public management they would be entitled to assistance from the rates, but not till then. This is a via media between the threat of exclusion from all public grants unless public management is accepted, and the other extreme of full enjoyment of public grants without any public control. The religious question so called does not require to be raised at all in connection with the reorganisation of the management of Education in Scotland. If unfortunately it be made prominent, it will be to the detriment of the real matters of importance. is a secular one, to be settled by educationists and legislators, not by religious sectaries.

The present question

Nor is the further and larger question of religious instruction in the school, and its relation to the moral function of the school, raised by the modifications of control and management proposed, and therefore it does not require to be here discussed. It is in itself, of course, one of the most important of all educational questions, whether regard is had to the interests of the Church or merely to the claims of citizenship.

CHAPTER X.

SOME ASPECTS OF THE WORK OF THE NEW

LOCAL AUTHORITY.

THE work of the renovated local authority will be a very important one. Any attempt to discuss it exhaustively would involve a review of the whole educational outlook. This lies outside our purpose, but there are one or two features of it on which a few words may be said.

The financial side of the present system will continue with little alteration in the administration of Elementary Education. But considerable alteration will be required in order to consolidate the grants for Higher Education and to provide further funds. The present Residue Grant and Equivalent Grant, that now administered by Burgh and County Committees, will be combined and handed over to the new authorities. To this will be added the balance of the grant for Secondary Schools, under the

Local Taxation Account (Scotland) Act, 1898, available after the cost of inspection, examination for Leaving Certificates, and perhaps Higher Agricultural Education has been defrayed, these being entitled to a prior claim. Still further there is the recent Equivalent Grant (1902), amounting, it is understood, to over £200,000, which has provisionally been distributed among School Boards for aiding in the staffing of Elementary Schools. This grant is the equivalent of the sum given to England under the Education Act of 1902, and it would appear only fair that a portion of it be allocated to Higher Education in Scotland. The simplest plan would be to hand it all over to the local authorities, ear-marking a proportion of it, which ought to be a generous one, for Higher Education. These four grants would be "pooled and distributed, in accordance with the needs and circumstances of localities, among the local authorities to be administered by them according to lines laid down by Parliament, and under the supervision of the central department.

An equitable method of distribution is not very readily reached, for there are several different

principles that operate, and each of them must be taken into account.

First there is population. Equal populations, it may be thought, require equal educational advantages; there may be expected on the whole to be the same proportion of children requiring Secondary Education in town and in country, in Glasgow as in Argyllshire, in Midlothian as in Inverness-shire. As a matter of fact, we find the number differing very considerably, as has been pointed out. The north, too, for example, supplies a larger proportion than the south. Population, as a basis of distribution, may be a priori just, but it is certainly insufficient.

It

Another principle is that of valuation. is argued that the value of property in a certain district is a measure of the contribution which that district makes for public purposes, including the amount that it has indirectly paid to the imperial revenue, from which the Government grants are derived. It regulates also the rate

which is the local contribution to Education in supplement of the imperial subvention. Therefore it ought to regulate the amount of that sub

vention itself. This is right so far, but it bears very hardly on poor and populous districts where, on the assumption of equal portions of the population taking Secondary Education, there are larger numbers to be educated and smaller resources upon which to draw, both local and imperial. If the strong are to help the weak, the rigidity of the principle must be tempered by the application of the previous one.

Thirdly, there is the distribution of population, with the means of communication, which must be taken into account. No safe inference can, it seems, be drawn universally from the nature of a district as urban or rural regarding the number of pupils pursuing Secondary Education; for while it has been seen that Lanarkshire and Sutherlandshire present a marked contrast in this respect, yet if the pastoral and agricultural Counties of the South be taken, we find that the percentage there is very low, in one or two cases even lower than in Lanarkshire. The actual facts must be examined and weighed. The variations are extremely puzzling, and we can hardly attempt here to explain them. But, quite apart from this, it is evident that the