The State System of Education

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 23, 26 February 1884, Page 3

The State System of Education

Tlio following letter recently appeared in the Wangnnui Chronicle. Its perusal wilL amply repay all interested in tho ,pr««scnt educational system : — Siß, — When the tas});i3 r rrs grumble at tho very large amount expended on education out of the colonial revenue, one tiling should be remembered which I have nut seen alluded to in your articles on .the subject and elsewhere. Ft is this — that though tho total amount may be lhrge the individual taxpayer is really a proat pecuniary gainer. Suppose that everybetty had to pay for the private education of his children, would it not cost him three or four times as much as j his present nliare of the educational vote. His share is now at the rate of £1 per bead on the population, at the very most. Suppose a man has thr;'e children, his family contribution will be £5. All these children may get educated for that amount. What would it cost if they went to private schools ? I don't think any private school would do it at £2 par head, per quarter — £24 per annum for the lot. I look upon this cry about the expense a» a red herring, which, whether intentionally or not, distracts attention from the really important point, which is not the cost but the quality of the education given for the money. My own opinion is that what we are getting is not worth the name of education — that is a training of the young in such a manner as to make them what they ought to bo when they are grown up. It is superficial, scrambling, unequal, and entirely incapable of bringing out the qualities which make tho useful, much less the great, men and women whom we should wish to see the future inhabitants of tbia country. I sincerely hope that Parliament will take tho matter in hand, and give it the serious consideration it doserves. A right system rightly ndministered would do far more for the elov.-ition of the people than the well-meant but impracticable insurance scheme of the Premier.— l : am, &c.,— William Fox.