200 BOARD OF EDUCATION 
organised on a basis of single local government areas. 
The problem of necessitous areas is getting too big 
to be dealt with by putting a patch on to the 
ordinary system of grants, and apart from those 
which are conspicuously necessitous, we have made 
little progress towards that equalisation of burden 
as between rich and poor areas which is obviously 
appropriate to a national system. Moreover it is 
obvious that with Local Authorities so many and so 
different in their stature and their resources, in the 
geographical and social circumstances of their areas, 
and the traditions which spring from them, the idea 
of * uniformity,” which the Royal Commission of 
1901 postulated as the characteristic of a national 
service ”” which the Central Authority should secure, 
or the idea of a “national system” providing “equality 
of opportunity ” which is prominent in the Act of 
1918, cannot easily be realised. How far isit possible, 
within the province of Local Government, to see 
that young people who happen to live in one area 
shall not have greatly less educational opportunities 
than those who happen to live in another area, and 
on what lines should the Central Authority try te 
redress such inequalities ? 
At present the educational landscape is largely one 
of « peaks and valleys,” and the peaks are not all in 
urban areas or the valleys all in rural areas. Uneven- 
ness is an inevitable consequence of a localised system 
of administration, though even centralised systems 
have not been successful in eliminating it or neutral- 
ising local handicaps. From the point of view of 2 
national system supported by the taxpayer’s money 
drawn from all parts of the country and all classes.