OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1309, 21 July 1884, Page 2

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

To THE EDITOB. Sir,—Any calm and unimpassioued mind during the past few weeks must have been struck forcibly by the strange unanimity tint prevails in the election speeches of the various candidates on the education question. . To judge from the almost monotonous agreement of the various oratora on the subject, one might almost fancy that as the financial broadsheet of the cilony has not balanced, that therefore the expenses of national education are wholly responsible for the deficiency. Nothing can be further from the truth. The candidates who hitherto have made political capital of this theme have proceeded upon the principle—a principle sufficiently obvious to all minds licking in originality—of copying and repeating one another. Some political " nose of wax" with a mental vision of the shortest posiible focus having initiated the cry, the other imitators have followed suit, mid seizing upon it with avidity have dinned it into the ears of the electors ad nauseam. Now, Sir, any candid elector will readily allow that the present educational system is faulty—as what human institution is not ? —and to some extent parhaps too costly. But the cure proposed by such root and branch reformers U infinitely worse than the disease; and would prove perhaps like the medical practics of the renowned Sangrado—a trifle too drastic to suit the exigencies of the case. Some are for almost demolishing the system at one fell swoop; others wou'd tinker at it, would become in the words of Falstaff "a thing to think Uod on"; a third set would introduce Scripture reading, a feature that has been shown over and over again to be utterly untenable in any purely national system; and a fourth would impose sslmol feas, than which a greater and more faUl blunder could not be committed. To impose fee-i would give a thorough death-blow to education, especially in country districts, and would act prejudicially in the settlement of remote districts, as the planting of schools there has alone been a mighty factor in the work of pioneer settlement. All teachers know also that the income derivable from fees in an average country school of, say, forty pupils wculd not be worth the trouble and anxiety entailed in their collection; and any further grant allowed by Government towards the salary would not suffice to pay a pror>ery qualified teacher. Tha consequence would be) that the country schools espec-ially-B-which should have as efficient men over them as the town seminaries—would be officered by green lada and in- ( competent old women. i To amputate one or two of the Stan ] dards from the education syllabus would j be also most objectionable. Eveiy prac- i tical teacher knows that the average boy ( who has only reached the Fuurth Stan- | dard has only received an education suitable perhaps t > enable him to become an intelligent enough "knock-about" on a farm, or an efficient butcher'a boy ; but certainly not adequate enough to ground him for, say, a skilled ttade or profea?ion, < or to fit him for a position of any reapon- i Bibility. The Fifth and Sixth Standards t are in fact the cope-stone of the present * system, and ana wera all the purposes to the « majority of pweats of limited, means tfykt I r

the present expensive, high and gram uar schools profess to do, and to do away with them would entail a very great act of injustice upon every struggling parent in the colony. It has not been at all clearly shown either by Parliamentary aspirants that the expense of a system of Four Standards would differ much in expense from the old system, and if the scholarship system is to be perpetual, it would bo found in the long run a more expensive and not half so efficient a means of hig < e location as the Fifth and Sixth Standards. Whatever ohauges that may be found necessary in our educational system should certainly not tend towards the imposition of ■■'.ay charges whatever for elementary instruction. If expense for such a high purpose be any object, there are other branches that can bettor be lopped than this, and the public should watch with lynx-eyed jealousy any attempt to weaken the usefulness or reduce the value—by any “penny wise and pound foolish” policy—of our present national system.—l£am, etc., Senex.