Page:The Extravagent Expenditure of the London School Board.djvu/13

 1876 (the last published account), the amount reached £82,974 for 98,146 children, or 16s. 11d. per child. No fairer standard than this can be chosen, and yet we find that there is an increase in one year and-a-half of nearly 30 per cent, in the cost of teaching for each child in average attendance. Such an increase means of course nothing more or less than a general advancement of the salaries, a quite unneccessary step (to this extent at least) when we bear in mind that the demand for this class of Teachers exists only on the part of Board and Voluntary Schools, and that the prestige attached to the former would be sufficient inducement for efficient Teachers to engage themselves therewith. There is, no doubt, just at present a dearth of good Teachers, rendered inevitable by the general establishment of School Boards, but it is a want which presses equally upon the Board Schools and upon Voluntary Schools, and any disposition on the part of the former to seek, by offering higher salaries to draw the Teachers from the latter schools, would be inconsistent with the spirit of the Education Act of 1870. In this item, as in the previous ones, it is important to observe that these charges are increasing every half-year, out of all proportion to the increase in the amount of work done, and if not speedily checked will continue to increase at the same rate.

The last item with which we propose to deal is that of the Salaries of the Officers of the Staff. A just criterion of the economical or extravagant tendencies of a public body will always be afforded by a review of the cost of administration by the staff of the central office. Any disposition to jealously guard the interests of the ratepayers would be displayed in a rigid economy in the Salaries of the Officers. The School Board for London, so far from exercising any economy in this respect, has reared up a huge pile of officialism absolutely out of all proportion to the labor involved by the Board's duties, and with a general system of increase of