whereas, if the boon were given unconditionally, the same motive to exertion would not be felt, and the bounty in many cases would prove to be an evil instead of a blessing."1

(4.) Assistant-Substitutes.

The Trustees, as has been fully explained in previous Reports, encourage the retirement from active duty of aged schoolmasters in connexion with the Bequest, without requiring them to resign their official position as parochial schoolmaster, and they admit to the benefit of the Bequest Assistants appointed to act for the principal teacher, on the understanding that they shall be, in the fullest sense of the word, Substitutes. The importance of this provision is manifest.

If the acquirements and qualifications of the assistant-substitute are satisfactory, it is considered unnecessary to inquire how he is appointed; but in every case in which it has fallen to the Trustees to suggest the mode of appointment, they have recom mended that the selection should be made by the minister and heritors, who are the legal electors of the principal schoolmaster.

The pecuniary arrangement is that the substituteteacher receives the school-fees and the ordinary allowance from the Bequest, together with a minimum

Professor Menzies' Report of 1854, p. 32.

salary from the heritors of £35, in parishes where there is only one parochial school, and of £25 in parishes where there are two or more schools,--the incumbent retaining the former salary paid by the heritors, and receiving also an extra allowance, at the rate of £12 a year, from the Bequest. The average amount of the provision for the substitute, from the sources specified, is £91, 14s. 3d. per annum, in parishes where there is only one school, and £81, 14s. 3d. in parishes where there are two. In addition to this the Trustees now require that the substitute shall have the exclusive occupation of the house and garden. The retired incumbent's income is in money about £41, exclusive of emoluments from other sources, of which the average is £5, 3s. 2d. per annum.

It is contrary to the implied understanding between the Trustees and the principal teacher that there should be any agreement between the incumbent and his substitute, imposing upon the latter, as regards his position and remuneration, any other conditions than are distinctly expressed in the arrangement as contracted with the Trustees. When it has turned out, therefore, that by private compact different terms have been settled, the allowance has been retained until the latent agreement was cancelled.

Except in the qualification of age, and the nonreservation of their allowances prior to their passing the examination, assistant-substitutes are subject generally to the same regulations as schoolmasters in

full possession of the office of parochial teacher, with this exception, that if incompetent as teachers they are not put on restricted allowance, but at once required to resign.

When the state of the schoolmaster's health prevents him from personally making an arrangement, the Trustees are enabled to obtain an effectual contract for the employment of a substitute, by the judicial appointment of a guardian, empowered to act on behalf of the incumbent.1

An abstract of the regulations applicable to principal masters, to assistant-substitutes, as well as to temporary substitutes (acting for teachers during temporary absence at College), will be found in Appendix IV. To enter more minutely into these points of detail in the body of this Report would be wholly superfluous, after the exhaustive treatment of them in the Report of 1854.

For a similar reason I avoid enumerating and vindicating the regulations regarding the occupation of teachers with duties outside their proper school work; merely mentioning, that while the Trustees offer no objection to the occasional discharge of pulpit duties by those teachers who are licentiates of the Church (as the great majority are), they stringently enforce their rule against all stated' clerical engagements. They have offered no objection to the union of the offices of Session-Clerk, Registrar, or Inspector of the

1 See Report of 1854.

Poor with that of Schoolmaster. The office most incompatible with the proper discharge of school duties is that last mentioned; and it is not improbable, that were it usual for teachers in the three counties to hold it, its claims would be found to conflict so seriously with the work of the school as to call for special consideration.

CHAPTER IV.

ADMINISTRATIVE AND OTHER CHANGES SINCE 1854.

Assistant-Substitutes-Temporary Substitutes-Music-Side-Parochial Schools.

Assistant Substitutes.-The principal changes introduced since the date of the last Report (1854) were rendered necessary by the Parochial and Burgh Schoolmasters Act of 1861. The extent to which this Act modified the parochial system, as settled in 1696, and reformed in 1803, has been already explained (p. 220). One of the most important of its provisions, however, both in itself and in its relation to the Bequest, was that contained in the 19th clause, which enacts that the heritors may superannuate teachers, granting them "a retiring allowance, the amount whereof shall not be less than two-third parts of the amount of the salary pertaining to the office at the date of such resignation thereof, and shall not exceed the gross amount of such salary." The defects of former Acts in respect of superannuation, had been to a great extent supplied by the judicious arrangements of the Bequest Trustees, who had used their powers to facilitate the transference of schools into the hands of assistant substitutes, on terms which have been already explained.