One matter of detail which has been often pointed out as calling for legislative interference, is the difficulty, under the present law, of relieving parishes from the burden of incompetent schoolmasters, and particularly of schoolmasters who have become unfit for their duties by age or infirmity. Unhappily there are no retiring allowances provided in the parochial school system of Scotland. The consequence is, that it depends upon the mere liberality of the heritors--who however, to their honour, are seldom found wanting in such cases--whether a man who has outlived his usefulness shall continue to exercise his functions. For this evil it is very desirable that the obvious remedy should be furnished; and we think that there are no insurmountable practical difficulties to arrangements on the subject being carried into effect. It might also be proper to give greater facilities to presbyteries in dismissing teachers for wilful neglect of duty--a contingency which it is right to mention is both of very rare occurrence, and is best provided against by care in the selection, on the part of the heritors, and in the rigorous exercise by presbyteries of their large powers of examination and rejection, when the appointments are originally made. With regard to the existing salaries, their inadequacy has been already insisted upon. Nor, for many reasons, can we accept the recently propounded--if it can be said to be propounded, for its terms are not a little ambiguous--plan of the Privy Council's Committee for their augmentation as any remedy whatever. That plan--not to speak of more serious objections to it--includes certain conditions which are so framed, as practically to exclude from participation in the grant all parishes except the wealthiest and most liberal, which, of course, least need it. It is enough to mention here, that one of the conditions on which this grant, in every case, depends, is the _voluntary_ concurrence of the heritors themselves in the payment of a considerable proportion of any addition to the present salary. We, of course, wish, that eventually some truly practicable means may be adopted to secure for the parish schoolmasters, throughout the country, allowances more in proportion than their present pittances to the importance--which can hardly be overrated--of their duties, and, we may add, to their merits. These matters of detail admit, we repeat, of improvement. It is desirable that something should be done in the case of both. Better, however, a hundredfold, that things should remain altogether as they are, than that the principles lying at the foundation of the system should be shaken. It is to be hoped that the Church will be true to herself in regard to the question of pecuniary aid either from government, or by government legislation; refusing for its sake to compromise in the least degree her sacred rights--or let us rather call them her sacred duties--of superintendence; Better to be poor than not pure.