The Evening Star SATURDAY MAY 16, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3504, 16 May 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY MAY 16, 1874.

We do not think there is very much in the complaint often made that the cost of at the Boys' High School is very high. There is indeed no reason at all for saying that this cost is too great, if we may judge from the rate of fees chai-ged in the various English and Colonial schools. In schools of the same rank as our High School, it will be found th*at the fee I charged is about L2O per annum on the average. This being the case, objection I can hardly be made' to this school on the ground that the education of each scholar costs too much, since the cost of educating each of the High School scholars is less than £lB per annum. Nor is there any great force in what has been said about the difference between theexpense of the Boys' High School and that of the Girls'. We think that this difference arises from the fact that male teachers of high standing everywhere receive higher salaries than female teachers of equal rank. We do not know why this should be the case ; we only say that it is so. While there are five expensive male teachers iu the boys' school, there is only one in the girls' school. It is then not to be wondered at, seeing the numbers attending the two schools are, on the whole, about equal, and the fee charged is in both cases the same, that while the girls' school about pays its expenses, the boys' school does not do so. It seems to us, however, very unfair to find fault with the management of the High School because that institution dees not pay expenses; the thing to be complained of is evidently the social arrangement which causes men to be more highly paid than women. There are, as it appears'to us, only three ways of meeting the difficulty. The first is to raise the fees very considerably, to make the school a class institution, one that could be made use of only by the very wealthy, and to employ in the school only as many teachers as the amount of fees received would pay the salaries of. The second plan would be to dispense with the services of the greater part of the teachers that are at present on the staff, and employ less expensive, and, we may assume, less efficient ones in their place —to make it, in short, a school of lower grade. The amount ot fees collected would probably not fall off much if such a change were made : only, the school would be no longer a High School. The third and most sensible way of meeting the difficulty would be to fairly make up our minds that it is impossible at present for us to have a Boys' High School which shall be thoroughly efficient, and shall, at the same time, anything like pay expenses. This has been demonstrated over and over again; but the Philistines repeat their attacks with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, and may possibly ultimately prevail. We should, however, infinitely prefer to see the High School abolished, rather than that it should do merely District School work, though still retaining the more high-sounding name.