The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1887. SIR J. HALL ON EDUCATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1626, 3 August 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1887. SIR J. HALL ON EDUCATION.

Sir John Hall, when addressing a meeting of electors the other evening .at Leeston, gave considerable prominence to the subject of education, and we must say held the scales pretty fairly. After expressing his opinion that some economy could be effected m the expenditure on education, Sir John Hall went on to say — " I dissent altogether from the wild assertions that enormous reductions are possible, but on the other hand I protest against the doctrine that the Education Department is a kind of sacred ark upon which no man's hand is to be put, and that we are not on any account to touch that department, That department must be subject to inquiry like every other. While we should carefully avoid anything which might deprive the rising generation of the means of obtaining a good education— the most valuable gift we can bestow upon them — we have a fair right to inquire whether it can be obtained it a smaller cost than is now being paid for it. We should bear m mind that the present cost is exceedingly large, being, according to a return laid before the Legislative Council, half a million sterling a year. It is constantly increasing, and is much greater than was contemplated when the Act introducing the system was passed. Its cost is complained of not by one class only, but by all classes, who are threatened with additional taxation. If reasonable economy he not practised m connection with our education system, I believe that it will lose much of its popularity, which to my mind would be a great misfortune;" This is quite true, for whatever popularity the system may have at any time enjoyed, we venture to think that it has already almost, if not wholly disappeared, owing to its excessive costliness, and if economy m expenditure be long delayed, what little popularity, now remains, will speedily vanish. Sir John does not think that Government should pay for children so young, as they are now doing, and would consider 11 whether, when they had passed the fourth or fifth standard, they had not receiped the rudiments of an education wh.icjfi would enable them, if anxious to pusfc their way m life, to carry on their education '.after they have left school." We should have b.gen' feeder pleased had Sir John spohen out boldly. He surely has had time since '78 to arrive at a conclusion on this point ; but Sir John is a wide-awake politician. Me does not like to commit himself to the expression of any positive opinion, jthougft U js abundantly evidefi* th?t he entertains one. Hip subsequent arguments prove this, for m his following remarks on secondary schools, he says': "We find that m many places the teaching m these overlaps that m the primary schools ; that is to say, that the lower bran^oeg of the secondary schools are receiving the pitQie instruction as. the higher branches m the primary schools. You are employing' two s£ts of people to do the same , work." Just so. Tfris shows very . clearly that there is a certain jj»#?ount ojf uncertainty as to the goint ar- wijich instruction should cease m the primary, and commence m ths secondary schools. This, the general voice of itye country, as well as this overlapping, medicates to be at the beginning of the fifth standard. With regard to secondary schools for higher education being

supported by the Government, Sir John gives an equally urrtert2in sound. "I quite agree" hesay,"ihattherichshould pay for any education which they can afford to pay for, but it appears to me that establishment of secondary schools by the Government isnotsomuch for the tenefitot the rich as lor that of people of limited means, who wish to give their children a better education than the primary schools afford, and who cannot afford to pay the entire cost of such lighter education. The payments by those who can afford to make them should, m my opinion, be higher than now, and provision be made for a more liberal system of scholarships." Sir John seems to think it hard that those who wish tG give their chjijdren a higher education, but cannot afford to pay for it ; but if higher education were free nearly every child would be sent to the secondary schools. Whereas with high fees, and scholarships for the more deserving of those whose parents could not afford to pay them, the system would be confined within reasonabla limits, with advantage of the children ihemselve.%