THE EDUCATION BOARD.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2282, 30 August 1870, Page 2

THE EDUCATION BOARD.

To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir, — Having only «n Saturday evening seen your issue of Wednesday, 24th inst., I hope you will excuse me for not having sooner acknowledged (as I now wish to do) your courtesy in publishing my letter of the 23rd.

I regret that you have not thought proper to give an answer to any of the questions cantained in my letter, but have contented yourself with asserting “ Our report was correct,” &c. As a member of the School Committee, and having been present at the meeting of the Education Board, I am constrained to call in question the accuracy of several of the statements contained in your report. On behalf of myself and several other members of the School Committee, I must contradict the statement that “the quarrel was of a per onal rather than a professional character.” lam aware that an attempt was made to fix a quarrel on members of the Committee, but it does not at all follow that those members actually had or have a personal quarrel with the schoolmaster. Then the statement that “ Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Free Churchism were ranged against each other,” would doubtless excite the curiosity of most who read it, and very probably wrong conjectures were formed in the minds of many. Most people know that the first two isms do not blend very harmoniously together—in fact, that they are rather antagonistic in their natures than otherwise ; and it might fairly be concluded that anyone who attempted to stir up the antagonistic elements of these two isms, mote especially if he went out of the way to do so, would by most people be deemed to have acted not only unwisely, but culpably. If, however, it is intended to be inferred that they were ranged against each other in the matter submitted to the Board by the Committee, I must state that such was not the case, although an attempt was made to make it so. As to the other ism, I must confess to being unable to perceive clearly the meaning of the terra or the applicability of it to any denomination in this country, unless it is meant to refer to the Presbyterian Church in Otago, as being in a manner a branch of the Free Church of Scotland. In which case, as it is well known to be only a special form of Protestantism, what I have stated with regard to Protestantism is equally applicable to it. With reference, however, to the introduction of the religiora element into the case, permit me to say that the fault and lack of wisdom rests with those who first went out of the way to introduce it, with those again who did not scruple to make a false assertion by way of raking it up in another form before the Board, and I may add with those who brought it before the public, by unnecessarily referring to it in a report in the public prints. It can be easily proved that in neither instance were they numbered amongst the seven members who adhere to the action taken by the Committee, or who supported the application made to the Board by the Committee—an application agreed to in the first instance by every member of the Committee ; so that your statement, “it was in reality an attempt on the part of ‘certain’ members,” &c., falls to the ground. I have just one other remark to make, and then 1 can assure you I will not trouble you again in a hurry. With reference to the “patient hearing of both sides,” permit me to say that, on the part of one member of the Board {His Honor the Deputy-Superintendent), there seemed to me to be a little more than a patient hearing of one of the sides. Again thanking you for your courtesy publishing my former letter, and hoping you will give publicity to this one also, I am, &e., Thomas King. Green Island, 29th August, 1870.