FREE EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1419, 22 April 1912, Page 4

FREE EDUCATION.

DISCUSSED BY VICTORIA COLLEGE DEBATING SOCIETY. An ordinary meeting of the Victoria College Debating Society was held at the College on Saturday evening. After notice of motion to amend certain rules had been given, the society proceeded to the. main business of the evening, a discussion on the question of whether secondary education should be free to all, irrespective of merit. . Mr. Broad, seconded by Sir. Troadwel], supported the present system, which was claimed to bo practically free to nil. Mr. Catldick, M.A., seconded by Mr. Quilliam, opposed the indiscriminate grunting of free secondary education, and emphatically stressed the point that merit should be the determining factor as to whether a child's free education should cease on parsing from the primary school or should continue right on to the University. The supporters of the present system urged that education, being the most ennobling element in civilisation should be ns widespread as possible, whereas its opponents regarded it ns "democracy run mad." A number of members look part in the discussion which ensued. On the motion,

"That the present policy of granting freo secondary education to all is unsound," being put to the meeting, it was declared carried. Tlio judge, Mr. G. Hogbon, Inspector-General of Schools, after giving a very helpful criticism of the debate and of a number of the individual speakers, placed the five best speakers in the following order: —Mr. G. G. G. Watson, 1; Messrs. .1. Stevonson and F. 0. HallJones, 2 leqnnl); Messrs. A, 13. Caddick, M.A., and G. W. Morice, M.A., 3 (equal). A hearty vote of thanks to the judge concluded the meeting. :