Each parish, besides having a Parish Council, has a School Board,
which, since 1872, has administered the education of the parish.
Education is free and compulsory for all children between the ages
of 5 and 14. The schools are of three types—primary, intermediate,
and secondary. The intermediate schools provide a three years’ course
beyond the elementary stage, and the secondary schools a further course
lasting for two years.
The County Council now takes a certain share in educational
administration, having powers to allocate grants of money to schools
and bursaries to pupils. The training of teachers, which until recently
was in the hands of the Churches (Established and United Free), has
now passed to a Provincial Committee elected by various representative
bodies.
Every burgh has a Town Council consisting of Provost, Magistrates
and Councillors, who hold their seats for three years. The number
of councillors varies with the size of the town. In Aberdeen, the
councillors are elected by wards, of which there are eleven, each ward
electing three representatives, one of whom retires annually. The Town
Council of Aberdeen consists of 34 members, the Dean of Guild being
an _ex officio_ member. The Town Council is the local authority for
Public Health, and looks after the streets, buildings and sewers. It
owns the gas works, water works, tramways, electric power station, and
public parks. It regulates the lighting, cleansing, and sanitation. The
Magistrates, who are elected annually by the Council, are the licensing
authority, and form the police court for the trial of minor offences.
The city of Aberdeen is not like Peterhead and Fraserburgh included in
the administration of the county, being itself constituted the county
of a city, with a Lord-Lieutenant of its own, who is the Lord-Provost
_ex officio_. It has its own Parish Council as well as its own School
Board.
Aberdeenshire is represented in Parliament by four members—two for
the county, east and west, and two for the city, north and south. Some
of the smaller burghs, Kintore, Inverurie and Peterhead, are grouped
with similar burghs in Banff and Moray (Banff, Elgin, Cullen) to form
a constituency called the Elgin Burghs, which returns one member.
In addition, the University of Aberdeen shares a member with the
University of Glasgow.
There is still a certain amount of overlapping and confusion in
the administrative divisions. For example, Torry, which is on the
Kincardineshire side of the Dee, is really a suburb of Aberdeen, and as
such elects members to the Town Council, the Parish Council, and the
School Board, but it has no share in electing a member of Parliament
for Aberdeen, being in that regard part of Kincardineshire, and voting
for a representative of that county. There are other similar anomalies.
24. The Roll of Honour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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