CHAPTER II.

GOVERNING BODIES AND FUNDS.

THE chief local authorities in our educational

system are —

School Boards, Burgh and Parochial;

Governors of Endowments and Endowed .Schools;

County and Town Councils;

County and Burgh Secondary Education Committees ;

Governors of Voluntary and Proprietary Schools;

University Courts and Senatus.

Then there is the central authority: Committee of Council on Education in Scotland (Scotch Education Department).

None of these is quite unrelated to the others, but there are great distinctions in the functions they discharge. The governing bodies charged

'with educational institutions, as distinct from funds, must be separated from the others. They

are:

School Boards;

Governors of Endowed Schools;

Governors of Voluntary and Proprietary Schools;

University Courts.

The other authorities administer funds only. School Boards control and manage Elementary Public Schools and Higher Class Public Schools, also Higher Grade Schools;

Governors of Endowed Schools, the Endowed Schools, Elementary and Secondary, for whose sake chiefly they exist;

Governors of Voluntary Schools, Voluntary Schools chiefly in connection with one of the religious denominations. Proprietary Schools receive no grants from Government, though they are inspected and are allowed to send in pupils for the Leaving Certificate.1 Proprietary Schools may, with a certain show of reason, be classed as private, but are semi-public

1 Government returns give both under the designation "voluntary,” but the term is thus rendered very ambiguous.

in respect to management; they are chiefly Secondary, while Voluntary Schools are Elementary.

With Universities and their government we need not deal further at the moment.

Each of the bodies governing schools has a separate and independent existence: School Boards have no power over Endowed Governors, except in so far as they have representation on them, nor has the University any relation to the School Board. On certain bodies of governors the University is represented, but that is the sole link, so far as statute law goes, between the University and the rest of the educational system. Voluntary Governors of Elementary Schools are independent of School Boards carrying on similar work in the area; they are, indeed, competitors with them. Similarly Proprietary Schools compete in the Secondary field with Public (Higher Class) Schools managed by School Boards as well as with Endowed Schools. The competition is now less felt than it once was, because the Proprietary Schools are more expensive than the other classes mentioned, and cater for a different class

of the community. Those that did compete with Higher Class Public Schools twenty or thirty years ago have now been killed out.

Putting the facts in a slightly different form we have:

Elementary Education under School Boards and Voluntary Governors (Managers);

Secondary Education under School Boards, Endowed Governors, [Proprietary Governors]; University Education under University Court and Senatus.

The two links of connection are: (1) Elementary and (so far) Secondary Education under School Boards; (2) the slight bond between 1 University and Endowed Governors.

Let us glance now at the other authorities which do not manage schools, but merely administer funds.

County and Town Councils administer a fund popularly known as the Residue Grant, because it is, or was, a residue after certain other charges have been satisfied, and that for behoof, if so resolved, of Technical Instruction within the

1 University professors used often to be found as members of School Boards: at present there are very few instances.

meaning of the Acts. The fund was established under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, and has varied in amount from about £40,000 or under per annum up to £70,000 or £80,000. It may be devoted alternatively in whole or in part to the relief of rates, and an appreciable, but unhappily not a diminishing, proportion of it has been hitherto so applied. There is a leakage of one-fourth to one-third of the fund in this way.

The Councils sometimes apportion it directly, after the disposal of it has been considered by the Finance Committee; or a special Technical Instruction Committee is appointed for the purpose of administering it. In other cases the amount is handed over to the Secondary Education Committee for administration. The last method constitutes a step in advance by simplifying the machinery and co-ordinating the work of two analogous authorities. It would appear that about one-third of the grant is at present thus handed over.

Secondary Education Committees are elected in counties, half by the County Council and half by the chairmen of School Boards. In