31 JANUARY 1880, Page 3

The School Board of London on Wednesday discussed the wisdom

of paying a salary to the Chairman of the School Board, and showed a very wholesome reluctance to commit themselves to that policy,—at all events, as a fixed policy. We think they are right. Where there is a large leisured class out of whom it is possible to get not less good, and it may be even better, officers of this sort than you can get for money, it is a pity not to utilise them. There are at present on the School Board of London not a few wealthy and able men who give a great deal of time to their work, and who are in training to become excellent chairmen of the Board in future. Why should London refuse their services, all the more valuable because disinterested, only on the ground that there is one excellent chairman of the Board whom it might be at once desirable and just to pay ? This is not a case where a long and expensive professional education is indispensable, as it is with good Judges or Stipendiary magistrates. It is a case where men of sense, wealth, and leisure may often discharge the duties better than most men. could do, to whom it was essential to earn an income.