SCHOOL FEES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE " Srserlros."]
SIR,—I will not trouble you any further about the new scheme for the recovery of fees until it has been more folly developed, and tabulated results can be appealed to ; but I must point out that Mr. Llewelyn Davies hardly does justice to past Boards when he says " the old plan was that the parents paid, or refrained from paying, at their choice."
Every Board in succession has admitted the duty of en- deavouring to recover the fees as long as the law requires the payment. Each in succession has loyally sought for some simple means of doing so; and if some of ns think that the law should be altered, and the whole fee system abolished, it is because we have been driven by practical experience to the con- clusion that the problem is insoluble in any other way.
I need not detail the various methods that were tried, but they all involved legal proceedings as the ultimate resort. It is true that we shrunk from ejecting the children; but is it certain that the present Board will be more sternly inflexible on this point P Facts, so far, point the other way. There is already a leak somewhere, and escape is found in lavish remission. But if the rule of exclusion is, after all, rigorously enforced, the same obstacle which hindered the old methods will be encountered. This is the difficulty of getting a sufficient number of prose- ontions heard to act as a practical deterrent.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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