366a

the session in the Academy (including bed, board. and washing) amounted to £24; that the cost was excessive, being for building to date £1,335 I 35. 7d. for three yaars’ salary to masters £900. The committee concluded its report with a recommendation that the masters be given free use of the building, and that their salaries be reducted from £150 to that of the highest district teachers. So far the Academy seems to have been nothing more than a higher institution for the people of Charlottetown. Even ten years later than this, the roll shows but a very small number from the country districts in attendance.

In the year 1843, was passed an act to alter and amend the act of establishment of the Academy. The trustee board should thereafter be composed of the Chief Justice. the President of the Legislative Council and the Speaker of the House of Assembly, as ex-oflicio members, together with ten others appointed by the Governor, two of whom should retire from office annually. One of the two masters should be Head Master at a salary of £150, to have general control of the institution, and to teach the higher branches. The second master should teach the lower branches of classics and Mathemat- ics, together with general English Litera- ture, and should have a salary of £100; a third master should be appointed at a salary of £50, to teach Arithmetic, Writing, Eng— lish Grammar and the rudiments of an Eng- lish education. The fees paid by the students should be divided among the masters, as the trustees deemed proper. Four pupils from each county should be taught gratis at the Academy for a period not exceeding two years, pupils to be selected by the trustees of the institution. Fees should be ten shillings a half year for each of the subject's, Reading

PAST AND PRESENT OF

Writing, English Grammar, Practical Arith- metic, Mathematics; fifteen shillings per term for Classics; for Geography and the use of Globes, forty shillings per half year. Boarders at the Academy for each term should pay ten shillings for all or any of the subjects. n

In the year, 1837, an act was passed to provide for the inspection of schools, and John McNeill, who had been Clerk of the Assembly, was appointed Visitor at a salary

.of £63 135. 11%d. He performed the inspec-

oral work for the whole province until the year 1847, when the increased amount of work called for the appointment of an in- spector for each county. In Mr. McNeill’s first report he gave the number of schools operated in accordance with the provisions of provincial legislation as 28 with an aver- age attendance of 860. Twelve of these schools were in Queens county,nine in Kings and seven in Prince. He reported that there were in operation fully as many other schools which did not receive public assist- ance.

His report of January, 1841, showed that the school system had not yet worked out a satisfactory solution. It did not give to the poor districts sufi‘icient schools or full school advantages, as the largeness of the fees deterred poor parents from sending their children to school, and even in the wealthier districts the board and accomm0~ dation of the teacher for a time was the common method adopted by parents to sat- isfy the pledge made by them for the sup- port of the school. Consequently but a small part of the young people of the prov- ince was in school. The census of 1833 showed a population of 16,207 persons be- low 16 years of age, yet the visitor reported