PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

subscribed their rateable amounts the trus- tees might levy the remaining one-third of the sum on the other inhabitants who had children of school age. The Board of Edu- cation might establish in Georgetown, Char- lottetown and Summerside grammar schools in addition to the existing district schools, if suitable buildings were provided. The teachers should receive salaries of £100 each from the treasury. The Board of Educa- tion should be the trustees of the said school in Charlottetown, and the Government should appoint the trustees for Georgetown and Summerside. The rammar school teachers should be certified b he Board of Education as competent to ch Latin, Greek and French, in addition to the sub- jects demanded for second class license. Children from the country might attend gratis the city grammar schools. Two school visitors should be appointed at salaries of £150 each, and should be required to make two visits during the year to each school.

The report of the Normal School of Feb: uary 7, 1863, showed general prosperity and an attendance of one hundred and ten stu— dents. Mr. William, Monk, who had been headmaster from the opening of the insti- tution on July 22, 1856, had retired on June 30, 1659. Mr. John McNeill, the visitor of schools, then acted as master until No- vember 30, when Mr. Joseph Webster re- ceived the appointment. Under his direc- tion the school seems to have flourished, though no doubt the increased attendance was in part due to the lengthened term. He had the assistance of Mr. William Bell as second master from July 1, 1861, to March 30, 1862, but lack of accommodation ham- pered him in his work; yet he noted with sat— isfaction that all the thirty-seven students prepared by him during that term had passed

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the examination of the Board of Education. The act of 1863 had made provision for the careful inspection of the public schools. This work had been done from 1837 to 1847 by a single person; from 1847 to 1853 there had been inspectors for each county; from 1853 until March 9, 1857, Mr. Stark had been sole inspector; from the date of his resignation until 1863, Mr. John McNeill performed the duties of the office with the assistance of Mr. Robert Blake Irving for the period between October I, 1858, and April 28, 1859. The Island had by the act of 1863 been divided into two inspec- torates, the one comprising the schools of Charlottetown and of the eastern portibn of the province under Mr. John Arbuckle as visitor, and the other containing the remain- ing schools with Mr. William Henry Buck- erfield as visitor. The schools seemed to need the stimulus of a visitor, for in one of his reports Mr. Buckerfield expressed the hope that the necessity of raising part of the teachers’ salary recently imposed by legisla- tion upon the people might cause them to appreciate more the advantages afforded by the schools, since in one hundred and forty— five schools he had found a total attendance of but one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one pupils. In fact there were many indications of apathy toward the schools. Although the Government was expending on education £13,332 15. 4d. annually, the people displayed no interest in the matter other than to keep to a minimum the local cost of the school; they systematically se- lected from the great number of teachers of- fering for a vacancy the one who was will- ing to underbid the rest, and oftentimes they avoided all expense by refusing to assess the portion of the teacher’s salary that the act of 1863 required of the district. For this