The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1885. The Education Board’s Inspectors.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1450, 7 February 1885, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1885. The Education Board’s Inspectors.

The breeze that has long ruffled the educational atmosphere of Ashburton has now extended its disturbing and, let us hope, its purifying influence to the whole of North CanterJartiry. Although the newspaper reports of the proceedings of the North Canterbury Board of Education are very meagre we gathef from them and from other reliable sources that Mr Dempsey’s reply to the Inspectors’ report on his school, produced some very strong expressions from Mr Saunders in reference to the Inspectors, which were ably endorsed by Mr Weston, and it was made perfectly evident that the great majority of the Board are now determined to test the reliability of their Inspectors before acting on their report.

Without expressing any general opinion on the merits of Mr Dempsey’s. reply, we are compelled to admit that he has, as he says, “ dealt with facts ” and that the facts, without entirely exonerating Mr Dempsey or his staff, are most damaging to the Inspectors and most conclusive as to the little value or reliance that can be placed upon their reports, so far, at all events, as the Ashburton school is concerned. The incident of the broken and removed desk at the Infant School was rather a small charge to bring against the headmaster in an Inspector’s report under any circumstances in support ot a very grave accusation ; but when it turns out to be altogether inaccurate, its introduction becomes petty and frivolous in the extreme and may very fairly be regarded as indicating a desire to find fault or a readiness to accept charges upon a very small foundation. The very satisfactory reasons which the headmaster is able to give for his division of labor between the second and third masters complained of by the Inspectors, also points to a clear want of common official courtesy towards him. Nothing is more universally under-

stood than that before one official complains of the conduct of another in any Civil Service, the party to be formally accused should first have every opportunity to offer any explanation in his power. Had this common act of fairness been practised towards Mr Dempsey by the Inspectors in either of the cases referred to, they would not have weakened their report by accusations so easily refuted or explained. As the Inspectors will now be on their trial we will not say more except to add that the circumstances under which the report was produced are in themselves unsatisfactory. The inspection was made in October ; the report

is not produced until January. With such delay can we wonder at mistakes, even under ordinary circumstances ? But the circumstances were not ordinary. In the interval the Inspector primarily responsible for the district, and who presumably wrote the report, complains of illness or a weak head and obtains a

long leave of absence. To this we must add the very evident, the very unpleasant fact that no school, no teacher, and even no Committee, bows with respect to the Inspectors’ reports, and that the North Canterbury Board of Education itself has evidently but slight confidence in them.

Such a state of things points to something thoroughly rotten and de mands immediate and searching enquiry. The Inspectors are not merely the responsible reporters and witnesses,

they are the eyes and ears of the Board, and if they are not to be relied on, the Board itself becomes useless and even dangerous to the public. It is no doubt desirable tbit g school inspector

should possess some natural ability—a head that is not weak—and some amount of education and experience, but it is infinitely more indispensable that all he writes should be thoroughly reliable, that his assertions can always be sustained, that he should think twice before he accuses anyone, and that his accuracy and impartiality should be beyond all doubt. There is no blinking the fact that the North Canterbury Board of Kducation itself is not what it once was. Under the able secretaryship of Mr Habens it attained a high repute, which it has since been able to live on. When he was translated to a higher sphere, we fear that he did not leave his mantle behind him, and that we have since had no evidence of the same power and energy and force of character that distinguished all he did. Such men are not found every day, but our School Committees are now called upon to elect three members to the Board, and we must hope that they will appoint men likely to remove incompetent or unsatisfactory officers even at the cost of a good deal of exertion and perhaps not a little abuse.

A Peripatetic Magistrate.

A suggestive announcement has just appeared in the Gazette to the effect that Mr Baddeley has been appointed Resident Magistrate for the Akaroa district. This is in addition to his present appointments. The Government, it appears, although they not long since made a preposterous increase in the fees of the Resident Magistrate’s Courts, have determined to retrench the expenditure upon these Courts in Canterbury, and, as usual, this particular part of Canterbury is selected as The corpus vile for the experiment. It seems an extraordinary thing that in places where but a fraction of the legal business done in the Ashburton district is transacted the magisterial arrangements are left undisturbed when these mistaken of economy seize the Department o 1 Justice, and that Ashburton should always be pitched upon to suffer. It

is easily to be seen that we are beginning to drift into the old channel of things, when Ashburton was made a kind of orphanage to a somewhat larger centre of population ; and we were favored with a weekly visit from a Magistrate, when it suited him to make it, and when he desired, suitors had to wait his convenience ; when the business of the day was hurried through in unseemly haste lest the Magistrate should miss the train, or be unable to keep some private engagement during his few hours “stay in Ashburton.” Our present Resident Magistrate, for some unexplained reason, lives in Christchurch instead of in Ashburton, which" one would naturally suppose would be his proper place of residence, and one can easily foresee that, while he is making his periodical visits to Akaroa and Little River, the business of the Ashburton Court will be left to look after itself, and that, what with one duty and another, we shall see very little of him in the future. The Gazette containing the notice of his new appointment has scarcely been published, and yet one of the effects of that appointment has already manifested itself in Mr Baddeley’s absence from the Court yesterday, which necessitated the Court cases being tried by the Justices. The business was light, it is true, the cause list having been arranged in anticipation of Mr Baddeley’s absence (quite regardless, however, of suitors’ interests); but we object on principle to the civil cases being decided by the Justices. We assert most emphatically, and are convinced that the Justices themselves will agree with us that the civil business of the Court ought to be transacted by a Resident Magistrate. There are obvious reasons why the Justices should not be required to adjudicate upon such actions; nor do we think it fair to the commercial men of this town who happen to be upon the Commission of Peace that any large part of the criminal business of the Court should be thrust upon their shoulders. We do not know whether or not Mr Baddelev could do more work than he has hitherto been expected to perform. He has presided over the Resident Magistrate’s Courts at Ashburton, Rakaia, and Geraldine ; and lately he has been made Coroner of these districts. This would seem to be a fair amount of business for one Resident Magistrate to do satisfactorily; but at any rate, Mr Baddeley’s duties in the Ashburton district are so important, that any other duties which may be cast upon him ought to be made entirely subsidiary to these ; and Ashburton, not Christchurch, should be his centre of operations.