Sir Thomas Acland, in speaking yesterday week at the dinner
of the East Devon County School, at Sampford Peverell, antici- pated an early solution of the question of county finance by the establishment of County Boards, and went on to lay great stress on the local organisation of schools in each province, so as to make a hierarchy of schools, from the primary to the very highest, by way of which the children of the poor may pass, when they are clever enough to obtain for themselves exhibitions, even to the Universities. He exhorted small localities not to keep too tenacious a hand on local funds, since these funds often do more good even to the locality itself, and almost always to the public at large, when used as exhibitions for open competition. Sir Thomas Acland illustrated his principle by example,—offering exhibitions. for two or three years tenable at the school whose anniversary was being celebrated, for pupils from elementary schools. A better example to local selfishness not to keep all its money to it- self could hardly be set,—but local selfishness is apt to be more, instead of less, tenacious than individual selfishness, just because being a social passion, it looks less selfish than it is.
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