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II. Because the spirit of the Act, and especially of clause 17, does not contemplate the case of every teacher who may have been employed for the term of one year in any school established prior to the passing of the Act, but the case of those teachers only who may have been employed in teaching for the period above specified in any school as above described, and who might not be able to undergo the regular examination. The intention of the proviso in said clause was to prevent any hardship from being inflicted on such teachers, so far as this might be done consistently with the promoting of the interests of Education, and not to allow all who might happen to have been engaged in teaching for the term of one year, to escape examination as a matter of course, if they should so desire.

III. Because the proviso in clause 17 does not, and was not intended to apply to the whole of the said clause preceding the proviso. The satisfaction with the teacher’s fitness to conduct a school, which by the said clause the Board are entitled to insist on, and the examination of every teacher which by the same clause they are required to make, refer to two different things—the former to the general qualifications of a teacher, such as the capacity for school discipline, and for the maintaining of proper discipline, and a facility in imparting instruction &c., &c.—the latter to his literary and scholastic qualifications. In clause 17 the possession by all teachers of both kinds of qualifications is regarded as desirable, and what in ordinary circumstances should be required while the possession of the former kind of qualifications is held in the case of every teacher to be absolutely indispensable to his being taken into connection with the Board. The proviso in said clause makes it lawful for the Board in special circumstances to dispense with the examination for ascertaining the literary and scholastic qualifications of the teacher, but does not, and was not intended to relieve them of the obligation to satisfy themselves in all circumstances with the teacher’s general qualifications.

IV. Because the operation of the proviso in clause 17 obviously is and was intended to be contingent on the discretion of the Board. By the said proviso they are authorized in the exercise of their judgment, and of a discriminating leniency towards the capacity and status of certain teachers to dispense with an otherwise imperative examination, and for the granting, as for the refusing the dispensation so authorized, they clearly are and would be held responsible.

V. Because the opinion aforesaid founds the claim to exemption from examination on a supposed act of voluntary condescension on the part of the teachers referred to in the proviso of clause 17, in submitting to be classed as teachers of the second degree; whereas the meaning of the proviso obviously is that those teachers whose claim to be exempted from the examination the Board should deem it desirable or expedient to admit, could not in fairness to the teachers who submitted to be examined, and in justice to the interests of Education, be classed in any higher degree. It is not an inferior degree in exchange for non-examination, but an inferior degree because of an inability or a reluctance on the part of certain teachers to be examined, that the proviso in the said clause contemplates.

David Bryce.

We the undersigned adhere to the above dissent for all the reasons given,

Arch. Clark.
Thos. Chesseman.
Alex. Reid.

Auckland, 15th June, 1857.

REASONS FOR RETIRING FROM THE BOARD:

We, the undersigned, members of the Board of Education, having carefully considered the opinion of the Provincial Law Adviser on the interpretation of clause 17 of the Education Act, and having felt constrained to dissent from it for the reasons already stated, have come to the deliberate conclusion that we cannot conscientiously and consistently with our views of duty to the public administer the Education Act as by the aforesaid opinion of the Law Officer interpreted; and inasmuch as the said opinion has been officially given, and we deem it inexpedient to assume a hostile attitude towards official legal authority, we have determined forthwith to vacate our seats at the Board for the following reasons:

I. Because the opinion of the Provincial Law Officer takes away from the Board all power to take those steps which they may consider the best, and indeed precedes them from taking any satisfactory steps at all, to ascertain the fitness to conduct a school possessed by those teachers who claim to be exempted from the examination according to the proviso in clause 17, before either they or the schools in which they are employed be taken into connection with the Board, and so to see that the public money would be disbursed meritoriously as regards the teachers, and advantageously as regards the interests of Education, which power the Board in our opinion both by the act undoubtedly possesses.

II. Because the opinion of the Provincial Law Adviser, while by making the proviso in clause 17 apply to the whole of the preceding part of the clause, it ostensibly relieves the Board of all responsibility, not only as concerns the fitness to conduct a school, but also as regards the moral character possessed by those teachers who under the proviso claim to be exempted from examination, does, nevertheless, and in reality, leave the Board responsible for both, in the eye of the Provincial Legislature and in the view of the public in every case in which the claim for exemption might be sustained.

III. Because the opinion of the Provincial Law Adviser makes it imperative on the one hand, that the Board should sustain every claim for exemption from examination that might be presented under the proviso in clause 17 without having any proper respect to the merits of the case, and, on the other hand, throws on the Board the invidious responsibility of vindicating the purity and justice of their own act, and that to parties who can come before them only as claimants, in the case of the