A Shameful Proceeding

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 42, 27 September 1887, Page 3

A Shameful Proceeding

We wonder what the Premier and those who regard our present educational system as perfection, a thing too sacred to be touched and admitting of no improvement, we think of it when they read the story recorded in our telegrams to-day, of little children turned away from a " national" school and denied the benefits of "free secular and compulsory" educatien, because they were unfortunate enough to have lost their parents, and to have found refuge in a charitable institution. A more scandalous story has never been recorded in New Zealand, and we are astonished that the committee did not at once suspend the schoolmaster who had dared to refuse admission to the poor little pauper! children. The state has reared these children and taken charge of their physical care and yet they are refused admission to a State school. Are they to grow up in ignorance as a penalty on their unfortunate position, or are we to have a second sj stem of schools for such waifs ? The thing is monstrous— i£ is disgraceful, and a! parody on our boasted " national" system. We can see nothing more degrading in an orphan child being fed and clothed by the State, than in the children of well-to-do parents being educated at the cost of the State and we trust that the very strongest measure will be taken to teach the teacher and the committee that class distinctions/ such as they evidently wish to set up will not for a moment be tolerated in this country. Those whom misfortune has driven through no act or fault of their own, into public Orphanages er Homes are not to be subjected thereby to any social stigma or treated as pariahs. In the State schools at least, they should on terms of perfect equality with the children jjof the very richest in the community. We trust advantage will be taken of the present occurrence to make this thoroughly understood, and to read a lesson to would-be scholastic snobs.-^Post.

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