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Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 132, 30 April 1891, Page 2

At the annual meeting of the household ers, held on Monday last for the election of a school committee for the current year, the Chairman made pointed reference to the bad attendance of scholars a' the Feilding school, and he also mentioned in his report that there were several families resident in the district the children of which, although of the proper age, were not sent to school at all. This is not creditable. Where education is free, and, indirectly, the pareuts earn a bonus by sending their children to school, this is not only disgraceful, it is foolish. In common with all others who have the best interests of their fellow settlers at heart, we hope the newly elected committee will exercise to the utmost the powers given them by the compulsory clauses in the Education Act. and enforce the attendance of these obstructionists. It is hard that about two hundred children should have to sit shivering in the cold schoolroom, fireles.s, because a few heads of families are so ignorantly selfish and blind to the best interests of their children, that they w]ll not send them to be educated, and by thiir presence, when the roll is called, increase the average and thus enhance the amount of cap tatiou earned, Our contemi O:-ary the Wanganui (hr>!iicle ! asks why the schools in Onago show the highest average in the colony, while the schools on this coast are down on the bottom of the list ? We can answer tho first part of the question ; It is owin^r to the powerful Scotch element among the settler, there Scotchman hold it to be a disgrace if they do not avail themselves of every chance to educate their children, and the good example they give, in that respect, is naturally followed by tbrii neighbours of other nationalities. Our reply to the second part of the question is that too many parents on this coast suffer from the dry rot of indifference on educational matters, and because they were not themselves taught in their youth they do not see why ttanr children should be better than they. We are awaro that of late the attendance at the Feiliinjf State School has improved, but still it is far from what it should be.