highest school;
nay, that, like that James Beattie who taught at one time the parish
school of Fordoun, he might, if native faculty had been given and
wisely improved, become one of the country's most distinguished
professors. In fixing our permanent castes of schools, Grammar and
English, we would strongly urge that there should be no permanent
castes of teachers fixed--no men condemned to the humbler walks of the
profession if qualified for the higher. The life-giving sap would thus
have free course, from the earth's level to the topmost boughs of our
national scheme; and low as an Englishman might deem our proposed
rates of remuneration for university-taught men, we have no fear that
they would prove insufficient, coupled with such a provision, for the
right education of the country.

We are not sure that we quite comprehend the sort of machinery meant
to be included under the term Local or Parochial Boards. It seems
necessary that there should exist Local _Committees_ of the
educational franchise-holders, chosen by themselves, from among
their own number, for terms either definite or indefinite, and
recognised by statute as vested in certain powers of examination and
inquiry. But though a mere name be but a small matter, we are
inclined to regard the term Board as somewhat too formidable and
stiff. Let us, at least for the present, substitute the term
Committee; and as large committees are apt to degenerate into
little mobs, and, as such, to conduct their business noisily and ill,
let us suppose educational committees to consist, in at least
country districts or the smaller towns, of some eight or ten
individuals, selected by the householders for their intelligence,
integrity, and business habits, and with a chairman at their head,
chosen from among their number by themselves. A vacancy occurs, let
us suppose, in either the Grammar or one of the English schools of
the place: the committee, through their chairman, put themselves in
communication with some of the Normal schoolmasters of the south,
and receive from them a few names of deserving and qualified teachers,
possessed of diplomas indicating their professional standing, and
furnished, besides, with trustworthy certificates of character. Or, if
the emoluments of the vacant school be considerable, and some of the
neighbouring teachers, placed on a lower rate of income, have
distinguished themselves by their professional merits, and so
rendered themselves know