the present parish
School Boards for the purpose of elementary education, and to combine
two or more School Boards for the purposes of providing secondary and
technical education. This plan, however, meets with little favour. It
would be difficult to carry into practice, and if realised would
imperfectly fulfil the end of co-ordinating the work of the various
school agencies. Its only recommendations are its apparent simplicity,
and the fact that it could be carried out with the least possible change
in the existing conditions.

In the second place, it is proposed to retain the School Board system,
but to extend the area over which any particular educational authority
exerts its control, and to place under its direction all grades of
education. In the practical carrying out of this plan the present
district areas of counties selected for other purposes have been
proposed as educational units. On the other hand, it has been declared
that in many cases these areas are unsuitable for educational purposes,
and it has been proposed that new areas should be delimited for this
purpose.

The chief merit, if it be a merit, of this plan is the retention in
educational control of the _ad hoc_ principle--_i.e._, of the principle
of entrusting one single national interest to a body charged with the
sole duty of conserving and furthering the interest. The only reasons
advanced are the great importance of the educational interest and the
fear that if it is entrusted to bodies charged with other duties this
interest may tend to be neglected. But although both sentiment and the
interests of political parties are involved in the advocacy of the _ad
hoc_ principle, it must be kept in mind that the School Board system in
Scotland is universal and that the difficulties of the system which
prevailed in England before its abolition do not exist in Scotland. As a
consequence, it has been much more effective in Scotland than in
England, and has a much firmer hold on the sentiments of the people.

In the third place, it has been proposed to hand over the educational
duties of the country to the County Councils and to the Burgh Councils
of the more important towns, to adopt, in principle, a system of
educational control similar to that established in England by the Act of
1902.

Many reasons may be urged for the adoption of the last-named plan, and
we shall briefly state the more important.

1. An _ad hoc_ authority by its very nature is n