literary and a good deal of the scientific instruction take their tone and standard from the University. Entrance to the University is predominantly the aim the Secondary School and its pupils have before them. The chief value of the Leaving Certificate is that it is an equivalent to the preliminary examination in Arts, Science and Medicine. If, through any evil

chance, the Universities resolved no longer to accept it as such, it would at one stroke be deprived of more than half its value.

It is just here, as it seems, that the crux of the "Education Question" is to be found. If Elementary Education alone were concerned one would hesitate to advocate any upturning or an overthrow of the status quo. But with Secondary Education the case is wholly different. Here things have been drifting since 1872, until we have reached an impasse. The situation has become impossible. No one in particular is to blame. The course of events could not be foreseen, and human wisdom could hardly have anticipated the difficulties. On the contrary, a good deal of credit is due to those who secured funds for Higher Education, even

though they were at the moment unable to secure the proper machinery for administering them. The Scotch Education Department, too, has shown commendable persistence in its regard for the interests of the Secondary Schools and in obtaining the means of, in some degree, recruiting their finances. But we have now come to a point where we must reconsider the position. We have probably sufficient funds available, or, at any rate, the means of obtaining them, and it remains to deliberate as to the best means of employing these.

Meantime it must be repeated that the situation is an intolerable one. The Secondary School has to serve the School Board, the Secondary Education Committee, the Town or County Council, the Scotch Education Department, the University-five separate masters, each of which has its own ideas of Education, its own particular predilections. If this motley team cannot be driven successfully, the finances of the school suffer, and with them the efficiency of the education. If their claims can be satis-. fied, probably it is not greatly to the gain of Education.

The numbers of persons actually engaged in the administration of Education are considerable. There are 970 School Boards, 33 County Committees and 6 Burgh Committees, 33 County Councils and 205 Burgh Councils, besides the Committee of Council and the four Universities. Here we have no fewer than 1,247 local public bodies concerned with the management of Education in Scotland. The membership of the School Boards amounts to upwards of 5,600, of County and Burgh Committees to 400 these two alone, which are exclusively educational bodies, give a gross total of 6,000, but no doubt there are many persons counted twice, most of the members of County and Burgh Committees being also members of School Boards. In any case there can hardly be less than 5,000 persons, exclusive of officials, engaged in the administration of Education in Scotland, being more than 1 to every 1,000 of the population. This takes no account as such of County and Burgh Councils, whose members number several thousand more, probably embracing in part some of the foregoing, nor of Endowed School governors, who ought certainly

to be included: governors of Voluntary and Proprietary Schools may be ruled out of “public administration. The net result, then, is that there is a whole army of educational administrators in the country; the schools are over-ruled, and it would be almost too much to expect that even such a well-educated country as Scotland could produce 5,000 to 10,000 educational experts," and that, wholly exclusive of her professional teachers.

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Some of the inferences will be dealt with at a later point, but meantime our aim is to ascertain and fairly to state the facts.

There is just a word to be added on so-called Technical Instruction. The importance of Technical Instruction hardly needs at this time of day to be insisted on; it is axiomatic, and partly from this fact, and partly for its sake, Secondary Education, which includes Technical, has come to be regarded as a great desideratum. Knowledge has increased in every direction, and expert knowledge has become increasingly essential in every sphere of activity. Between Secondary and Technical there should be no contrast or opposition. "Technical" refers

rather to the purpose and character of the instruction, while "Secondary" refers to the grade or standard. Technical Instruction, from its nature, can hardly belong to the Elementary stage. The highest kind of it belongs to the University College, or University stage, which is beyond our consideration. Hence the school stages of Technical Instruction all belong to the Secondary stage, and are to be understood as embraced within the latter term. Secondary and Technical have a common meeting ground in Modern Languages, Mathematical and Physical Science, etc., and sometimes the term "Technical" is expanded so as to embrace pure Secondary subjects.

As is well known, the grant specially set apart for Technical Instruction, the Residue Grant, is much more precarious than any of the others. Its application to Education depends on an annual resolution of the County or Burgh Council. The total amount so devoted has risen in recent years through the rise in the amount of the grant, but the proportion has actually fallen, seeming to indicate a want of enterprise and alertness to the requirements of