The Globe. THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 939, 28 June 1877, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1877.

Those who oppose the proposal of the Professorial Hoard of the Canterbury College divide their arguments into two classes. They say, first, that such a school is unnecessary, as there is one already in existence quite able to perform the work required, and at a much less expense to the public ; and second, even were this not the case, it is not the duty of the State to provide secondary education; it should be left to private enterprise. We propose to deal with the last argument first. A correspondent of one of our morning contemporaries, signinghimself “G. 8.,” says: “ It maybe right for the Govern - ment to provide elementary education, and even to make it compulsory, hut when the State begins to meddle with Colleges and advanced education, it is, in my humble opinion, going beyond its province.” The same correspondent thinks it “ a monstrous thing ” that he and many others should be compelled to contribute towards the higher education of his neighbour’s children. Those who want it may get it by paying for it, hut higher education is the privilege of the wealthy, and tli© “common” classes should not be encouraged to seek after it. Sir Thomas Tailored ridicules the proposal of the Professors as “ the radical way of relying upon the arm of Government to do everything for us, instead of the old English plan of encouraging people to provide for their own wants.” We know that there are persons amongst us, who regard with unconcealed aversion the multiplying of facilities for higher education, as an invasion of the privileges of the wealthy. They affect to sneer at the provision for “enabling our undeveloped Hampden’s, and ‘ mute in glorious Miltons’ to ‘ make by force their merit known,’ ” and to view with alarm the overstocking of the professions, and the increase in the number of those who are “ choking up the avenues to those employments which exempt from manual labor.” “ At present,” it is urged, “ there is some limit imposed upon the number of combatants by the cost of the educational equipment and discipline.” But if higher education he placed within the reach of all “ the struggle for existence will he still more fierce, the disappointments far more numerous, and the reverses disastrous in the extreme.” Such, put in plainer language, appears to he the view of those who would confine the giving of higher education to private enterprise. The mere statement of the argument in all its native selfishness is enough. The State, we maintain, is deeply interested in the development of its best intellect, and ought to provide the means for its fullest cultivation. This is more and more becoming a recognised truth. In Germany. Switzerland, Franco, and Scotland they are not afraid to place the means of even an university education within the reach of the poorest man, and there nothing hut good has resulted from jibe system. Why should we shrink

from milking tho experiment here? In Canterbury, we have an excellent system of elementary education provided ; we have our College established on a firm basis, but the connecting link between the two is wanting. A High School is needed which shall enable ns to utilise to the utmost the teaching power of the College, and it will be a disgrace to the Gfovernment, if in the interests of the Grammar School they shrink from making the necessary provision. As we have already pointed out, the great mass of the people are deeply interested in this question. It is of the highest importance to all those who have children to educate that the best education obtainable in the colony should be within the reach of all, without distinction of class. If secondary education is left to private enterprise, it will necessarily bo expensive, and beyond the reach of all but the sons of the wealthy. The students attending the lectures of our professors will be drawn almost entirely from the same class. The prizes which fall to the educated will thus be placed beyond the reach of the masses, and a governing class created out of the ranks of the few. We need hardly point out how entirely such a state of things would be out of harmony with the spirit of our institutions. It is our boast in these colonies that the highest prizes in the gift of the Crown are within the reach of the humblest citizen, and it should be the aim of our educational system to offer the same facilities to the poor as to the rich for attaining them. AVe must leave the consideration of the other argument to a future issue.