Superior authorities and ordinary schoolboards have begun to learn the science of scholastic economy. Governing bodies, headmasters and headmistresses of private schools have always been familiar with the full set of financial problems from finding money for paying qualified staff to providing the means for the construction, equipment, and maintenance of all the buildings and accommodation nowadays required. They also have to determine the demand they want and are expected to meet and to fix prices people are prepared to pay. Moreover, private schools have to find the location most suitable to their purpose and see whether they can pay the price of land or rent. One of the financial propositions often overlooked by outsiders is that buildings and facilities can be used only part of the time as pupils have to be taught many different and particular subjects.
Schools have their own problems with economies of size.
The states and the communes can point out that they offer a wide variety of educational services free of cost or at only nominal fees and that those who do not find it good enough and want something extra should pay for it out of their own pockets. There is a certain republican and egalitarian pride in this attitude, which is not entirely without justification. Nevertheless, questions pose themselves and should be gone into, such as to which degree private schools complete the public system or even relieve it of charges which it might reasonably be expected to shoulder. Some problems have long been known to exist but have never found a lobby. And some private schools co-operate with the public system where solutions can be found for rational and politically viable cost sharing.