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132
examined. The figures, which were taken from the
Board's Accounts and other official sources, showed that
the expenditure was increasing under every head, and
that the net cost per child for school maintenance had
increased from £1 17s. Id. in the two years ended Ladyday,
1887 and 1888 respectively, to £2 5s. l½d. in the year
ended Lady-day, 1891, more than £1 2s. per head above
the average in English Board Schools outside London.
Instances were also given of what appears to be excessive
and unnecessarily expensive staffing of schools, and attention
was called to an increase of about 50 per cent., within
two years, of the "Salaries of Inspectors, Instructors, and
•other officers and miscellaneous expenditure," much of
which is unproductive from an educational point of view.
Unsatisfactory as this state of affairs was, the estimates
for the year ending Lady-day, 1892, revealed an even
worse condition, and called forth a special report from the
Vestry's Finance Committee. A copy of this report was
also sent to each ratepayer, and to every local rating
authority in London, in the hope that care would be taken
to select and support such candidates only at the then
approaching election as would make a radical alteration in
the expenditure of the Board. The report is of more than
passing interest, and is therefore reproduced as follows :—
The present School Board for London is now completing its third
and last year of office. Its expenditure has been characterised by an
enormous and continuous increase. On the other hand the number of
scholars in the Day Schools shows a smaller increase than has occurred
during the period of any previous Board.
The increase of expenditure
has taken place under every head, as the following comparative statement
of the estimates for the last year of the Board elected in 1885 and the
last year of the Board elected in 1888, will show :—