EDUCATIONAL MATTERS at BEEF CREEK.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 277, 28 May 1895, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL MATTERS at BEEF CREEK.

TO THE EDITOR OK TIIK STAR. Sir, — I have been waiting for an abler pen than mine to write a few words in praise of the pushing settlers of Beef Creek, who, when the Wangauui Education Board refused to help them by giving them a school for their children, like true Britons banded together and built a room at their own expense, and arc now paying a qualified teacher. The Boaid declined to even supply them with old maps for the school. Ido uot know whether they are still goiug on without said maps, or whether some friend has given them one ; I do know this — that one of the parents supplied a black board. There is au attendance of tweuty-scven children daily, a.s against an attendance of twelve to fourteen at the Pemberton public school, which has a teacher paid by the Board. What are the Raugiwahia people <loiug to bo allowing their children to' run wild ".' I saw, on passing through the township a few days ago, uo less than twenty children belonging to six or seven settlers unable, they told me, to go to school on account of the distaucc Pemberton school is from Rangiwahia, aud the awful state of the roads. I can quite agree with people not sendiug their little ones to travel such roads, as I had great difficulty iv driving through, expecting each moment to be thrown into mvd — not inches deep, but feet. Why docs not Raugiwahia bestir itself and build a shed and get a teacher, seeing that the Board of Education seem disinclined to assist them ? I hope, before I visit the district again, that there will be a nourishing school— and a Board one at that, as there is not the least doubt Rangiwahia is the proper place for the school. If one was opened to-morrow, I was assured there would be an opening attendance of from twenty-seven to thirty. Mr Baker, of the Wanganui Education Board, met the settlers last evening (Tuesday) re settliug about school matters. Nothing was done, so far as I could gather, but a lot of personalities indulged in aud bouncing done. Everyone left feeling that they had wasted precious time toiling through the mud for nothing, bej'ond a laugh at the roughness of the whole affair. I am, &.c, Visitor.