THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1859, 7 February 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1880.

A paragraph which appeared in our columns a day or two back with reference to the meeting of a certain country School Committee is fully calculated to create considerable surprise. It appears that the chairman of the present committee stated that that there were a number of dishonored cheques outstanding from the financial operations of their predecessors. It certainly does not seem creditable to a public body that its cheques should be dishonored. The most ordinary care would prevent a committee from drawing cheques without having funds to meet them. If a private individual were to proceed on a course such as this, the consequences might bo disagreeable, to say the least of it. Moreover, a letter was read at the same meeting from the master of the school alluded to, in which he complained that the cheque for salaries for December had not been honored. That is to say that for nearly two months the salaries of the school staff had remained unpaid. To give cheques for current accounts when no funds are in the bank to meet them, is sufficiently bad, but that a hard working staff should suffer is the proverbial straw that might possibly break the back of the whole concern. It is due to the school committees generally throughout the country to say that this is a decidedly exceptional case. In the majority of instances the work entrusted to the committees has been done with a zeal and thoroughness reflecting the highest possible credit upon the members. But this case, notwithstanding its rarity, carries its moral. If the committee found themselves in a state of impecunosity, their course was plain. They should have informed the Board of the state of their funds, and applied for an advance in order to enable them to meet their engagements. Residents should take some account of the business habits of the gentlemen whom they elect on the Committees. A Committee holding such wild ideas on finance as did the late Committee of the South Rakaia school are apt to do much damage. They may mean well, but something mere than good intentions is wanted. The general work of the school is sure to suffer when its managers mismanage in this fashion. The Committees report to the Board yearly, and start with a clean sheet, and it is surely not too much to expect from them that they should hand over to their successors the business of the school in an unravelled form. Local management is all very well, and decentralisation in educational matters, no doubts, aids the efficient working of the system. But the present case points to the conclusion that the system, however good in the main, has its drawbacks, and they consist in the busi ness of schools being handed to committees who are either incapable or unaware of the serious nature of the duties that they have undertaken.