The "Tablet" and Education.

Cromwell Argus, Volume V, Issue 211, 25 November 1873, Page 7

The "Tablet" and Education.

Discussing the education question the Tabid administers the following well deserved rebuke to the Dunedin people. It says :—" A foirrth primary school is urgently required in this city. The Provincial Government has granted £3OOO for the erection of a fourth school, but a site cannot be procured. The Government has no land suitable, and the Corporation does not see its way to part with municipal land for the purpose,—and the consequence is, the building of the school is postponed. Nosite, it appears, is to be had ; no landed proprietor in.this city of educationloving' people comes forward to show his appreciation of education by presenting his fel-low-citizens with a site for a school which, a generous Province is prepared to erect for their use at an expenditure of £3OOO. But what is more wonderful still, is that it never entered the heads of the persons for whose especial benefit this school is to be erected, to meet and by public subscription raise sufficient funds to purchase a site for a school for their own children. They would have no objection that the Province should superadd to the £3OOO already granted for their benefit another £3OOO or so to provide a site for. them ; but their doing this themselves is, it appears, not to be thought of. They have, appealed to 'the Corporation to save their pockets, and an attempt has been made to bully that body into acquiescence; but no effort has been made by those gentry to do what is manifestly their own duty. Those., who reside at a distance will measure these' people's love and appreciation of education by the sacrifices they make for its promo-', tion." Further on, in speaking of the High School, it says:—"Somehow or other we cannot divest ourselves of the feeling, amounting, almost to conviction, that the assault on the Institution is only a mask to an attack on the Rector, and our nature revolts from such meanness and cowardice."