LITTLE AKALOA SCHOOL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 427, 24 August 1880, Page 3

LITTLE AKALOA SCHOOL.

To the Editor.

g lß) —Will you allow me—the person most interested—space to reply to the letter re Akaloa School Committee of " Resident" ? This letter, as most of your readers will remember, appeared in your issue of Friday, August 20th. I will take up as little of your space aa I can, consistently with my wish to make a plain statement of facts, not fancies. To take your correspondent's letter eeriatim as to points shall be my first task. I,—As to the legality of the Chairman etaining his seat as Chairman, because hie wife is appointed sewing mistress in the school, and that in virtue of that office she gets Ll2 per annum, I think "Resident" may safely leave this point to the decision of those far more conversant with tho matter than he is. Let him rest assured the Chairman gets no benefit from the fact that the lady mentioned ia sewing mistress, unless indeed there be a benefit either in changing from one free house to another, or in the sewing mistress taking so much from her time as a dressmaker to devote it to earning a sum far smaller than ehe would realise were she employed in her trade for the same time as she teaches in the school.

ll.—As to the legality of the Chairman liring in the schoolhouse, I take it the only answer to this is simply: Mr Resident, mind your own business. But if your correspondent is desirous of having other reaeons why I do not care to occupy the house, he can, if you are willing, get them in your columns.

Hl.—The question of a member of Committee retaining his seat while he receives Ll2 10s for cleaning is a gross misrepresentation of facts. The truth is this—For the last three months the daughters of not the Comraitteeman have kept the school swept often daily, and scrubbed twice a „ month, and have never received from the Committee one farthing for this work. Will " A Resident," though not possibly a Committeeman, undertake to do the work * on the same terme ?

Tbe last paragraph but one in " A Resident's" letter makes me almost inclined to regret that the days are p«st when one could utter the aspiration—" Oh that mine enemy would write a book." There is something so delightfully ungenerous about th» statement that " it has taken the Committee several nights to discuss the matter," etc, that it makes me feel as if I at least had somehow lost count of time. The house was occupied by the present tenant on Augnet 17, and your correspondent writes on that day, and moreover eince the idea of my letting tho house at all was * first mooted, the Committee have met but once. If once is synonymous with several I do not understand plain English.

I should mention that the points involved in this discussion will shortly bo placed by me before the Board of Education, Christchurch. Till they give me the benefit of their light "A Resident" may P well extinguish hie rushlight spark. Pity it is that some people in these bays m hare so little to do that they must spend their time either in speaking evil of, or making miechief between, their neighbors. w —I am, etc., HENRY COX, Schoolmaster. Little Akaloa.