The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1883. Our Education Reserves.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1041, 6 September 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1883. Our Education Reserves.

Canterbury may be proud of its High Schools and Colleges. The Provincial Government, during its existence; exhibited a noble forethought in making liberal reserves out of the public lands as, an endowment for secondary education, and it must be admitted that the persons to whom the management of the funds produced by the letting of these reserves has been entrusted have, on the whole, used them wisely and well. Mistakes have been made, as might be expected, and as time rolls on, new principles of administration may have to be introduced; but the fact remains, that a body of scholastic institutions has b« , ' ’ ■ ’ would do credit to ary .u:i< y Unfortunately, succ...-' ■ of this kind has not ..J-« jealousy, and other pai, 0! d.e colon’, where educational riW.t.-.s it > ->.i by received less au«ntn.-n -1 ihtv did in Canterbury, ... >- i ticipate in those . 1 '-’..ini; ments which in this . -im:i; 1 '.istuct have produced such ; s .i- ■ s. -<‘ ugly manifestation c ■ t took place in the House es upon the motion fr :i» .on;. . or the Religious, Ch . J.; KL: catidnal Trust Bo;r j ncoryoru ;n Bill, to which Mr r? : -.n m.-i .1 uan amendment, that ‘.lie o 1’ ho f f r. to a Select Committee repon upon “(i) the provisions of J o Hill; (a) ho extent, position, mao i,-, tnt and present condition of t o rious affected by the Bill, th- >!p'‘i .-.o ' t or otherwise of the icso.itj.-ttun . / .1,. colony of so muds o: s-u.:n i’ ’d as have been obtained 0 ‘i or.Ki . v ment from the color’.r . u di e.hu.\U made no secret that J main ob was to get all the se-o. .j - ed • n c'; reserves of Canterbury ..n-■ compel their color,; 1 1. a. on n-. 1; thrown into a common slot k. ‘ h. mous tracts of land whoic c -u. a:he might say, in Ot 1: i d i■ ' ' had passed to the p. - o' tL c portions of the colony do v.vjdC.l .-1 serves. Abolition was abolition—one State, one Government, and one common fund. That was the outcome of abolition, if it was to have any outcome at all. But because Canterbury and Otago had made large education reserves at a time long before abolition was thought of, the members from the South could not come up there and talk abolition and maintain that, while the proceeds from these reserves were devoted to the giving to their children a university education, the people of the North Island had no right to participate in those‘reserves and must be content with secondary education for their children. The time was fast coming, as he said before, when the House would vote triumphantly for making all these education reserves common property; when it would vote for putting them into hotch-potch for the education of all the children in New Zealand, from the North Cape to Stewart Island.” -We have quoted Mr SHeehan’s very words in order to let it be seen that he did not mince matters in the slightest degree or leave any doubt as to the object which he had in view. His sentiments, too, were freely reciprocated by several other .members, and found an echo from high quarters, since Mr Conolly, the Minister of Justice, declared that “he was inclined to go with the .honorable member for the Thames, that-was to say, since the colony had now to take the expense of education from the common fund, in like manner all the receipts from endowments for education should go into the colonial fund.” The principal argument used in support of this “ common stock ” doctrine, was that it was unfair that the inhabitants of one part of the colony should enjoy superior educational privileges to those of another part. The argument is absurd on the face of it. In ho country under the sun do all the people stand on the same footing in this respect. A college cannot be built at every man’s dpor; and educational institutions of the higher class must needs be confined to the centres of population. People who livein out-settlements must put up with the loss of many educational advantages for their children which they would enjoy if residents of large towns ; and the only practical way of diffusing the benefits of,a' high class education which has yet been devised, is that of scholarships, which has already been adopted here. The settlers of New Zealand, indeed, have little cause to complain of lack of means for obtaining secondary education. If Christchurch and Dunedin stand pre-eminent in their

scholastic institutions, there is not a town of any importance in New Zealand which does not possess a high school or college where pupils can be sufficiently educated to enable them to compete for the degrees of the New Zealand University, whose requirements from students have been framed with the view of meeting the peculiar circumstances of the colony. It is only a contemptible jealousy of the well-earned educational superiority of Canterbury and Otago which inspires this northern hunger for their educational reserves; and we venture to say that if the desire of Mr Sheehan and hisfriendsweregratified, the effect would not be to raise Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, and Marlborough to the Canterbury standard, but to impair the usefulness of the collegiate institutions of Canterbury and Otago, and to depress them to the Northern level. _ Mr Sheehan’s motion fortunately did not commend itself to the majority of the House, and we rejoice to find, from the speeches of Mr Rolleston and Mr Dick that Mr Conolly’s views must be treated as his private opinions, and not as the views of the Cabinet; but the people of Canterbury may rely upon it that if they wish to preserve their secondary education reserves for their own use, they must keep a vigilant watch over them.