[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Sir Archibald Sinclair's rejoinder
does not disprove, but rather serves to emphasize the two points I endeavoured to make, viz. : (1) that no legislation exists to compel local authorities to make good the loss in bursaries when endowment funds are diverted to other purposes ; and (2) that some authorities are anxious to curtail existing facilities.
It is true that every local authority has in operation a scheme of bursaries approved by the Education Department. The authorities, in framing their schemes, and the Department, in approving them, must of necessity have acted with due regard to• the endowment funds of the area. The question, therefore, seems pertinent—has the Department made any move to call for amended, and more generous, schemes from those areas where endowment funds have been diverted from bursaries to other uses ?
- Sir Archibald's figures are somewhat misleading. Four and a half per cent. may be the flat rate which represents the rut in bursaries all over Scotland, but does not show the difference. between generous and parsimonious authorities. Actually I have knowledge of one area where, in December, 1931, without warning, bursaries from public funds were cut by 121 per cent., but—and this is a crucial point—bursaries from endowment funds were left intact because the authority in question had no power to tamper with them. Need one won ler at the reluctance to exchange the security and com- parative independence of the endowment fund for the hazard of the local authority's whims ?
A comparison between cuts in teachers' salaries and cuts in bursaries is illusory. Teachers are vocal : bursars are not. No cut has wiped out any single teacher's salary : many a sorely-needed bursary has been sacrificed on the altar of economy.
The attempt of Banffshire to substitute loans for bursaries has not succeeded. It has been rejected on legal grounds, but rejected with so much sympathy that one is left with the uneasy feeling that the movement, though scotched, is
not killed.—I am, Sir, &c., J. MATHEWSON MII.NE. Academy House, Nairn, Scotland.
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