THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1910, 8 April 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1880.

The Education Conference, held in response to a circular issued by the East Christchurch school committee, has resulted in several very valuable suggestions being made with regard to certain provisions of the Act which have been found to work not altogether as smoothly as is desirable. In the best conceived Acts there are always minor points which a practical working of the measure demonstrate to be capable of improvement, and a conference of the chairmen of the various local committees is the very body best capable of grappling with the subject, because the local committees are the bodies which should the most easily perceive the shortcomings of the measure they work under. And this for two reasons. The local administration of the various schools is the life-blood of our educational system. Without the stimulus of local interest, the whole plan would fall to pieces, like a house of cards. The Provincial Education Act of the Province of Canterbury may fairly be said to be the model on which the general Act was formed. Mr. Bowen, who successfully piloted the latter through the Houses, was a member of our old Education Board, and must have appreciated the success of the measures which nearly twenty years ago, under the directing eye of Mr. H. J. Tancred, formed for this province a system which finally raised our educational institutions into a stately fabric, the envy of our neighbours and the surprise of visitors. Mr. Bowen adopted the main features of the old measure, and foremost among those was the vital point of local interest. And then the second reason why local committees are peculiarly adapted to discuss alterations in the Act. They stand as a half-way house between the Board on the one part, and the local constituencies on the other part. Presumably they should be well capable of judging of the results of the edicts of the former, and of the manner in which the latter are eifocted by such edicts, and by those emanating from the fountain source —the Education Department. On one point the Conference may well bo congratulated. It travelled but little out of its legitimate sphere. But little discus-

sioa on standards and syllabuses was entered into, bat the working of the Act pure and simple, was the main thing that engaged its attention. The first resolution passed was that the annual meetings for the election of school committees should take place in April instead of January. Presumably the reason why January was fixed upon —it was October in tho old Canterbury Act—was that the length of the summer day might render in country districts the assembling of the voters easier work. But it has evidently been found that tho amount of field work to bo got through in January more than counterbalances the larger amount of daylight obtainable, and so a month, when work is slack has boon been suggested. Tho next motion but one came a suggestion from Mr. Howson, that the committee be elected for two years, and that one half of tho committee shall retire every year. This injudicious proposal was, very properly, negatived by a largo majority. The annual election of tho whole committee gives freshness as tho result of each succeeding election; and it is difficult to see what counterbalancing good could bo obtained by a species of continuous committee. The same ideas and routine would naturally bo perpetuated with the more experienced half of the members still in the committee, and a vicious set of ideas once started, or a spirit of antagonism to the Board once entered into would bo far less easily mended that when a new committee started with a tabula rasa. It is truo that brand new committees, supposing them to have no leavening of old members, may err in the direction of rashness and inexperience, but a short time will soon mend such faults, and errors of this description are more easily to be dealt with than a chronic adherence to ono sot of -impracticable ideas or a chronic attitude of antagonism to the Board. The abolition of cumulative voting suggested by tho Conference is, no doubt, a step in tho right direction. Representation of minorities is all very well in a small way, but tho working of the power granted by tho method of voting as laid down in tho present Act is not satisfactory. And this might well have been guessed by tho framers of the Act. Whatever might bo the case if a different method of collecting votes wer» framed, as the matter now stands, the electors having to attend a meeting at a given place, it is possible to imagine a determined and well-organised minority electing the whole of tho committee. “ Servo tho majority right,” may say an upholder of the system. But the teaching of a majority the benefits of energy and organisation is not ono of the objects contemplated by the Act. Majorities are invariably over-confident and lax in their proceedings, and the cumulative voting clause was decidedly not imported into tho Act to read them a moral lesson, leaving the school under the guidance of tho minority. The large majority by which tho proposal to abolish cumulative voting was carried in the Conference shows that those who are best qualified to judge in the matter do not think that the system answers the purpose for which it was adopted. With regard to the resolution passed with reference to history and Bible reading, it is almost to be regretted that the matter was touched upon. Tho motion passed may certainly servo to indicate the direction in which tho opinion of those connected with educational matters in Canterbury may tend, but it has little to do with the practical working of the Act, and enters too much into the region of abstract opinion. Under the Provincial Act, the reading of the Bible without comment was made part of the school routine, and, by a unanimous vote of the committee, the teacher was allowed to give religious instruction to the children. But the present Act is both more favourable to pure secular education, and leaves less to local committees than tho Canterbury Ordinance. Being a national measure, it has more wide-spreading interests to care for. It is true that few, if any, complaints wore made by parents in the days of Province that their children were being forced to receive dogmas unpalatable to the parents; but what applies to the smaller may not apply to the larger measure. What effect the present system has on tho rising generation must be a pure matter of opinion, and every parent in the colony will hold to his ideas on the subject. A member of a local committee, as such, is in no better position to pass judgment on tho question than anybody else, and the members of the Legislature are little likely to be moved by any resolution passed by the Conference on the subject. On this question they do not speak ex cathedra, and therefore it is a pity they have spoken at all. The two last resolutions of any importance passed by the Conference were as follows :—(1.) “ That in the opinion of this meeting it is highly desirable that the constitution of the Boards of Education should be so far altered as that tho members thereof should be representatives of localities, and to that end it is desirable that for tho purpose of returning members to the Board the country should be divided ini* electoral districts, co-equal perhaps with the electoral districts of tho Crown, and that each electoral district so constituted bo entitled to return a proportionate number of members.” This was carried unanimously. (2). “ That in the opinion of this meeting the compulsory clauses of tho Act should be a permanent obligation, and not be left to the committee to enforce.” With both of those motions we heartily agree. Tho first would give a more thoroughly representative character to the Board,'the'■ second would ensure the general adoption of a principle which has been sanctioned by general consent, and would relieve committees of a disagreeable duty. It may be fairly said, in conclusion, that the Conference has done much good work. It has boon practical, and has wasted no time in useless discussion. Its suggestions should, for the most part, carry weight, as coming from a body of men well qualified to handle tho subject they have boon dealing with.