1.—13b.

10

schedule provides that a rising salary shall be provided for a grade of school, but there will be circumstances such as the closing of an industry in a district in which the school will rapidly fall or even close by reason of non- or insufficient attendance. In that case, is it the intention of the Bill to give the Board power to transfer the teachers to the first suitable vacancy by merit? —Yes, it puts that proviso in, if they have signified to the Board their desire for transfer, whether they are applicants for that position or not. 78. Mr. llogg.~\ Do you think it would be advisable to make the tables a little more simple than they are?— Simplicity has been aimed at to emphasize the characteristics of the Bill. The tables could have been put in a sheet such as that which I hold in my hand. What I think we should do for the use of Secretaries of Boards, for instance, and for our own use, would be to issue an explanatory table with the salaries actually payable. But the important thing here is to show the grade of salary the teacher is in and to show how he could be transferred from one school to another. If you would look at the schedule you will see that in 9a there is a position with salary of Grade 4—that is, a second assistant with salary of Grade 4. You can at once see what positions of Grade 5 there were open for that teacher. 79. I was wondering whether it would not be best to have in separate columns the grade of the school, the average attendance, the teachers' salaries, where the assistants began and their positions and salaries opposite, so that at a glance you could see the whole thing?—lt would not show then so easily what positions are in the same grade. 80. I must say the schedules are extremely confusing. I dare say the teachers can understand them, but an ordinary reader would not?—l could prepare such a statement as that. That is the form in which I made it out myself at first. But to show the transfers this is the most convenient form. 81. Mr. T. Mackenzie.'] I cannot quite understand the reason for making subgrades in schools where you have no assistants?— There are subgrades of schools and there are subgrades of salaries. Grade 6is the first where there are any subgrades of schools. The grades of salaries are all marked with ordinary arabic figures, and the grades of schools are marked with roman figures consistently all the way through. 82. Mr. Baume. I would like to know whether you find it difficult or impossible to provide for a regular or certain scheme of promotion?—A colonial scheme of promotion? 83. I want to know if the difficulty in the way of the scheme is that you are dealing with Boards instead of a centralised body, or whether you cannot see your way clear, even with the present localised method, to give a comprehensive scheme of promotion ?—There are two or three ways of making schemes of promotion. Two of them I have considered. I will mention the third first. The third is the method of centralisation, but I consider that the success of the school depends upon healthy local control. In Switzerland we find that the schools are a part of the municipal life. If you take away the power of appointment from the local authorities you will destroy local interest. I am strongly opposed to centralisation on that account. There are two other ways. One is that which they have tried to adopt in New 'South Wales, and I see that Victoria has imitated it to a certain extent —or vice verm. That is, that instead of grading the salaries of the teachers, you grade the teachers and attach certain payments to those teachers wherever they happen to be. That is one way of doing it. To avoid that scheme's costing too much you would have to do what they do in New South Wales—limit the number of teachers in one grade. I will take one example of that. Take a teacher in Grade 4in Schedule 2. Part I—it is a very easy case to follow. The head teacher in a school of Grade 4 has the salary of Grade 4. In Grade 7 the first assistant has the salary of Grade 4, and in schools of Grade 9 the second assistant has the salary of Grade 4. You could do this: You could say that as there are 489 positions with the salaries of Grade 4, we will grade the teachers, and we will make 489 teachers of Grade 4; and you could do the same for every other grade. Supposing you did that, then you would have the Boards appoint the best teacher they could get for a particular school; but two of the principal difficulties that present themselves to my mind are—first, the difficulty of assessing the grade of the teacher. The Inspectors are officers of the Board, and have to be, therefore, the grading board or committee for each educational district, and yet the grading would have to be done for the whole Dominion. So that there would have to l>e a Board sitting in each educational district, which would afterwards have to review the matter for the whole of the Dominion and determine which teachers were to be in certain grades. It would therefore be difficult (though the difficulty might not be insuperable) to grade the teachers. The other difficulty is this: that certain districts of the Dominion—possibly where there are the best prospects of promotion, or the best climate, or where the cost of living is lower, but chiefly because of the chance of promotion—would be attractive to teachers, so that the effect would be that the Boards' in those districts would always have their schools staffed right up to the grading which the figure represented, but the other Boards would often have to appoint teachers of a grade lower than that suitable to particular schools. So that the two difficulties are the difficulty of grading, and afterwards that of letting the Boards scramble, so to speak, for the teachers. 84. That could be got over by regulations which the Boards sometimes make. It is regulated by stating that certain positions can be obtained by teachers who have spent a certain time in the country schools?— That would not affect the supply and demand between one Board and another. 85. lam referring to the system administered by each separate Board. T agree with you that there are many difficulties in the'way of any centralised system. The healthy interest evinced by the local authority is a matter of the greatest importance to our educational system. The point is this : whether there is not a possibility of insuring to a greater extent than at present that the highest qualified applicant shall in all cases get the position?—l think there is security in that if Hie Boards havo full power of transfer. I cannot understand any Board systematically putting teachers in unsuitable places. It might now and then happen by accident or otherwise,