ABOUT EDUCATION BILLS OF COSTS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2998, 3 February 1881, Page 4

ABOUT EDUCATION BILLS OF COSTS.

The American o. ■: respondent of the Otago Wii-n.j3S says:— I agree with tho Daily Times that you are paying too much for education in New Zea-lar-.1, and by this I mean that tho education fund does not come from the right source. In this country, more especially in tho new states and territories, Congress set apart public land in each township for school purposes. Tn addition, a fixed percentage of the State tax is appropriated by law to common schools ; and with tis, t also, a poll tax is levied which goes exclusively to their maintenance. By this means a very large sum is raised, and I must say, on the whole, is judiciously expended. But our administration does not cost anything like so much as yours does. Our locel school directors are unpaid, the State Board of Education costs something, but it is a mere bagatelle compared to the expense of your Education Department. An American writer, who recently visited the Australian _ Colonies, made a very suggestive and admirable remark in a letter from Melbourne the other day, to the effect that the colonies had voluntarily burdened themselves with the most cumbrous, inefficient, and costly system of government in the world, in their slavish imitation of the British Imperial system. He was quite right; and your Education Department, like that of New South Wales, Victoria, &0., is a ease in point. As General Sherman remarked the other day of the United States army, when discussing the proposal to create for General Grant the rank of Captain-general, " The service is already overburdened with too much rank for our small army " ; and I think you educational system is greatly overburdened with " too much rank." Very efficient, experienced, and zealous officers, no doubt, but as unnecessary in the main as a fifth wheel to a coach. Simplicity of management woidd go far to perfect and cheapen your educational system; and then there could bo a capitation tax of ten shillings a year levied for common school purposes. There need be no difficulty in enforcing it, and no one would feel it as a burden. This would relieve the Treasury, and give the masses a direct interest in the working of the school system. This country is taking a new departure on the education question. The illiteracy of the South, and the inability of that section to overtake the requirements of the population, white and colored, having been foreiby presented to Congress by the President, at his suggestion a bill was introduced, and has now passed the Senate, appropriating a portion of the proceeds of the public land sales for the building of schoolhouses, and creating an educational system for Dixie's land. This measure will revolutionise society in the outh. In a few years sectional differences will disappear, and North and South will be, heart and soul, one people. After all, this is a " great country," but, great as it is, we would never tolerate the extravagant waste of your top-heavy Education bureau. Throw the responsibility more upon the people, and make education less of a department of the Government, and you will lay the foundation for an intelligent, efficient, and inexpensive system of local oelf-government, such as we have in America. What you want above everything is to raise a generation of men and women who can manage their local institutions without subsidies, and who do not know the taste of Government pap.