HIGHEST EDUCATION;

_OR, WHAT IS LOOMING A-HEAD._

A Deputation on behalf of the Exasperated Ratepayers' Association
waited yesterday afternoon on the Chairman of the London School
Board at their new and commodious palatial premises erected on the
vast central site recently cleared, regardless of expense, for that
purpose in Piccadilly, and presented a further protest against the
ever-increasing expenditure indulged in by that body. The Chairman,
smilingly intimating that he would hear what the Deputation had to
say, though he added, amidst the ill-suppressed merriment of his
_confreres_, he supposed it was the old sing-song protest, possibly
on this occasion because they had recently directed that the boys
attending the schools of the Board should come in "Eton" suits,
the cost of which naturally fell upon the rates, or some captious
objection of that kind, which it really was a waste of breath to
discuss. However, whatever it was, he added, he was willing to hear
it.

The Spokesman of the Deputation, a Duke in reduced circumstances,
who ascribed his ruin to the heavy rates he had been called upon to
pay through the extravagance of the Board, and who declined to give
his name, said that though they had not thought the Eton suits a
necessity, still it was not against them that they had to protest.
It was the addition of Astronomy involving the erection (with fitting
first-class instruments) of 341 observatories in the London district
alone, Chinese, taught by 500 native Professors imported from Pekin
for the purpose, horse-riding, yachting, and the church organ (these
last two being compulsory), together with the use of the tricycle,
type-writer, and phonograph, all of which instruments were provided
for every single pupil at the expense of the ratepayers, to the
curriculum of all those pupils who were fitted for the third standard.
The speaker said he knew that it had long been settled that the finest
and most comprehensive education that our advanced civilisation could
supply should be provided for the submerged half of the population,
and they could not grumble at these things, but what they did not
consider necessary was, that a salary should be forthcoming for each
pupil-teacher sufficient to enable him or her to drive down to the
schools in their own carriage and pair. (_Much laughter._) He did not
think it a laughing matter. He would strongly suggest a diminution of
at least L1000 a-year in the salaries of t