The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1877.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 94, 12 June 1877, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1877.

The formal opening, by His Excellency the Governor, on Thursday last, of the buildings recently erected for the Canterbury Oollege is an event fraught with importance to the colony and especially to the district of Canterbury. For some time past, this College, which is an integral part of the New Zealand university, has been doing valuable work, and it is matter for sincere congratulation that a body so truly valuable has now a local habitation, —a home. But, as was truly remarked by His Excellency, " a College " is.a plant of slow growth. We obtain " funds to build it and to pay for the ■'• professors ; we may have scholars to " fill it, but it will take years before it "becomes really useful. It requires a " high moral tone, a standing, or—if I "may use the term — esprit de corps, " which will bind its fellows together, " and it is only after it has attained " these things, which I believe are as " necessary as the professors themselves, " that it really can be called a College." This is quite true, but the nucleus round which will gather still greater events has been formed, the little leaven which will hereafter leaven the whole lump has been introduced, and this we again say is matter for sincere congratulation and rejoicing. ; ..It may, and doubtless will be urged, that the College is all very well for the education of the children of the wealthy, but it will not benefit the working man. \Ve deny this, the fees are so low, that the benefits arising from attending the classes are within the reach of all who may choose to exercise a little care and self-denial. If the fathers of families would debar themselves from that which not only does a man no good but positive harm, the aggregate amount thus , saved:, would be found sufficient not only to give the children a sound primary but if a boy showed more than ordinary ability or a special aptitude for any branch of literature or science, to complete his education by sending him to the secondary school and in the end to the College. Again, if our young men instead of spending half their incomes-in frivolity and too often, we fear, in dissipation, would devote it to the requirement of knowledge that in after, life will •be invaluable, the result would benefit not only themselves but also the community where they dwell. Look at ■ Scotland, and mark what efforts are made.by parents to secure to their sons a university education ; how they will pinch and scrape together, in order that the hope| of the family may pursue his studies—i how the young men will deny themselves; and work almost night and day so as to enable them to continue their university, career. What is the result? Simply; this, Scotchmen possessed of. any brains: generally rise to eminence wherever their lot may be cast, and this is due not only, to the excellent education they have re-' ceived, but to the habit of earnest, continuous effort they have acquired during : their College training. Why should not New Zealand parents and New- Zealand youths "go and do likewise?"

"We have mentioned secondary schools and ere long we hope to see them established throughout the colony. They are the step between the primary school and the College. At present the time of the professors is greatly occupied in teaching what ought to have been taught at the secondary school; they are acting as tutors rather than as artists whose business it is to ornament and polish the structure which has been raised, by others. It is because we wish the College professors to be more employed in their legitimate sphere of action, that we .desire to see secondary schools in, full work throughout the land, and we desire this all the more earnestly,, because we know that none would benefit more than would the children of the working man, inasmuch as they would have an opportunity of acquiring, at a cheap rate, that power which if rightly directed may at some future time .sway the destinies of the state or confer great blessings on mankind ; for be it remembered that " knowledge is power." The education of the rising generation, our future men and women, some of whom may hereafter exercise great influence in the world, ought to interest every thinking man or woman. If it does not do so, rely upon it, those who feel no interest therein are either sunk into the slothfulness of selfish indulgence, or are entangled in the vortex of dissipation and folly, and experience no happiness save in the company and vapid conversation of those equally frivolous with themselves. We hope better things of the men and women of Akaroa and the Peninsula.