The School Board of London is out of its immediate
financial trouble, having received permission from the Local Government Board to present a case for the decision of the High Court of Justice as to its legal right to contract loans for temporary purposes, and to defray the cost of this proceeding out of the School Fund. At the same' time, it has received a severe rebuke from the Education Department, for signing contracts before the plans, specifications, and estimates have been finally approved by that Department, a course to which the Council of Education ascribe the embarrass- ments in which the School Board has involved itself ; and it is rebuked also for failing to observe that the Edu- cation Act itself contained a provision enabling the Board to contract loans for authorised expenditure, so that there would have been no difficulty in the case, if the Board had not been in such a hurry to sign contracts before the expenditure they involved had. been finally approved by the Council of Edu- cation. We have not yet had the School Board's rejoinder to this rather sharp censure, but at present it certainly looks as if the financial management of the School Board had been im- pulsive, not to say impetuous. Didactic enthusiasm has a ten- dency to outran the constable, which the ratepayers, who elect the School Board, do not seem likely to appreciate or approve.
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