usand teachers had been registered, of whom not more than
one half were graduates. The views thus expressed were shared by many
other teachers and it speedily became manifest that the proposed
Register could not succeed. In the Annual Report of 1905 the Council
stated that under existing conditions it was not practicable to frame
and publish an alphabetical Register of Teachers such as appeared to
be contemplated in the Act of 1899. In June, 1906, the Board of
Education published a memorandum stating the reasons which had led it
to take the opportunity afforded by impending legislation to abolish
the Register, and in the Education Bill of 1906 a clause was inserted
which removed from the Consultative Committee the obligation to frame
a Register of Teachers. This clause was strongly opposed by many
associations of teachers. It was urged by these bodies that although
one scheme had failed yet a Register was still possible and desirable.
It was held by many that the task assigned to the Registration Council
had been an impossible one since the conditions of supervision and
control imposed under the Act of 1899 left the Council very little
freedom and wholly precluded the establishment of a self-governing
profession. The general opinion seemed to be that any future Register
must be in one column avoiding any attempt to divide those registered
into different classes and that any future Council must be as
independent and widely representative as possible. This opinion found
expression and official sanction in a memorandum issued by the Board
of Education in 1911 after several conferences had been held for the
purpose of promoting a new registration scheme. The memorandum stated
that: "It should not be so much the kinds of teachers likely to be
most rapidly or easily admitted to the Register that should specially
determine the composition of the Council but rather the larger and
more general conception of the unification of the Teaching
Profession." This new and wider idea served to govern the formation of
the Teachers Registration Council which was established by an Order
in Council of February, 1912. The body constituted by this Order
consists wholly of teachers and includes eleven representatives of
each of the following classes: the Teaching Staffs of Universities,
the Associations of Teachers in Public Elementary Schools, the
Associations of Teachers in Secondary Schools, and the Associations of
Teachers of Specialist Subj