70 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

(4) In most cases, however, the house master is not
and cannot be expected to be trained in this direction,
and in most cases he has no natural ability in this sphere.
A further financial waste is the result. Consequently
money which should be available for school purposes is
completely lost.
A substitution of central control and organization for
the decentralized houses at a public school would result
 in such a saving that the money required for the
adequate staffing of a school, and for increased salaries to
assistant masters, would at once be available.
(c) Apart from the financial question entirely, however,
 the house system has another serious defect, for it
practically converts the masters concerned into superior
hotel-keepers. Their value as far as school teaching is
concerned must and does depreciate in marked degree.
The true duties of a schoolmaster are so important that
it is essentially unsound to sap their energies by making
them restaurant proprietors. Remove this burden from
them, they immediately become more efficient from an
educational point of view, they are available for more
hours of school duty, and one of the difficulties in the
adequate staffing of a school is thus mitigated.