PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3104, 9 June 1881, Page 2

PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

[To THE EDITOB OP THE DAILY TeIEGBAPH.] Sir,—One of the chief faults found with our colonial system of education is that it is too good ; that it has been brought to a standard of excellence that attracts the children of parents able and willing to pay, thus showing that, as a national scheme, it is above the wants of the people. Without doubt this is the gravest charge that can be brought against our educational system, as it involves the further charge that it is unnecessarily costly to maintain and extravagant in its refusal of school feer. I am one fur whose bentfit 1 am bound to thiuk tbe scheme was not established,

but the education children receive at the district school is so thoroughly well imparted that I should be neglecting advantages offered me did I not send my own children to it. lam willing to pay as high fees as would be demanded at any private school, and I am certain that many parents would also be glad to pay for their children's education at the public schools, but the system will not permit of it being done. I and other parents, therefore, receive advantages on behalf of our children at the cost of the country because those advantages are superior in our opinion to those that can be obtained in this district at private scholastic establishments. Nor is this very much to be wondered at. As a rule public schools attract the best teachers, and these possensing an evenness of attainments pupils in the lowest, claeses receive all the benefits arising from being taught by masters or mistresses of equal ability as those in charge of the higher standards. There is an immense advantage in this that ■ parents can fully appreciate. In private schools the proprietor, or proprietress, as the case may be, is probably a highly cultured individual, but the number of his or ber pupils in all cases will not warrant the employment of an efficiently trained assistant. The consequence is that tbe younger pupils are relegated to the care of some half-educated young person, while the older or more advanced childreu enjoy the personal teaching of the proprietor. My remarks apply, perhaps, more to schools for young ladies than to boys' schools. Wow, in the district school, the teachers are as nearly as possible on a level of trained equality, and in passing; from one class to another the pupil is subjected to a uniform system, or method, of education ; that is to say, he is thoroughly prepared in one class to receive the lessons in the next above it. He is not jumped from the hands of an inefficient assistant teacher into those of a cultivated individual, where being found a dunce he is either neglected or sent back to the semi-ignorant quarter from whence he came. This, I take it, constitutes the difference between public and private schools, and makes the district school—without the extra advantages of being free and secular—of so much more value to pupils. This being so, people rich enough to pay for their children's schooling must not be blamed for accenting what a liberal colony offers them. There is one other point I would touch upon. It is that I think the educational system unduly favors boys. There is no high school here for girls, and, therefore, though they may compete for a scholarship they cannot hold it, as there is no private seminary under tbe inspection of the Education Board to which they can go in order to continue their education. What is wanted ia a really first-class girls' school, at which all the advantages of a public echool would be found. lam certain that a good school of tbe kind would be largely patronised, and draw many girls from the district school, where they now have to be sent for tbe want of something more suitable. When I say " a good " girls school I do not mean an academy designated by the term "Young Ladies' College,' where a smattering of music, French, and "polite" manners are held to be all that a respectable female need be taught.—l am, &c, A Fahent. Jalyß,lßßl.