CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 27 July 1922, Page 1

CORRESPONDENCE

COST OF EDUCATION

(To the Editor).

Sir.—The Council of Education, the Educational Institute, the various Education Boards, some of the school committees, several other bodies and a number of interested and interesting individuals having criticised, most ly adversely, the articles on tho cost of education you were good enough to publish for me some weeks ago, I ant sure you will allow me a few words in reply I will be ns brief as I can be. but have no wish to evade any of the points raised by my critics, The main counts in the indictment directed against my articles by these high authorities are: (1) That they were ‘inspired;” (2) that they offered violence to the high ideals entertained by the founders of the national system of education: (3) that their purpose was to crente a prejudice against the education hoard? and to assist in bringing about their abolition and the centralisation of all authority in the head office in Wellington, and (4) that ‘enormous” was not the right word to apply to the increase in the expenditure upon education .

As for the charge that the articles were “inspired,” this is not the most serious of the counts, though it pro babl.v i<4 intended to imply T expressed the views of someone in authority who preferred to remain in the background. If this really is the intention of my critics. T can assure them that I have received no inspiration from the Minister or the secretary of his Department, or the Director of Education, or any less exnltccf person who might desire me to seek admission to your columns under false pretences. My sole purpose in writing was to direct public attention to expenditure on [education which, T thought, and still think, could lie saved without impairing the system in a single particular. T should he sorry indeed to think T. had been guilty of offering any affront to “the founders of the Dominion’s education system.” but one of ’my Canterbury critics, apparently speaking for the local Education Board, wonder.* what the late Sir Charles Bowen anti the late Mr Alfred Saunders would have thought of my suggestions towards economy. Tt was my pood fortune, in the days of mv comparative youth, to he on particularly intimate terms with both these gentlemen, and I would subscribe whole-heartedly to anv tribute

that might lie paid to their memory. But my own wonder—using the word ns my critic does is what they would have thought of the recent growth in the cost of education. Sir Cha.rles Bowen, the author of the original EducaTion Act. proposed in the first instance in insure economical ndmiistration by requiring parents to pay a certain part of the cost' of the system. TTo abandoned the proposal after the second reading of

the Bill and until the very last years of his useful life continued to serve the cause of education with consistent devotion and ability. But while

insisting upon efficiency he kept a very jealous eye on the expenditure, fearing that by its very cost the svsHom might fall into disfavour and in some time of national stress suffer at the hands of an economising Government. As for Mr Alfred Saunders, those of us who remember his views on public finance will have no diffieultv in imagining what he would have thought and said had lie witnessed the expenditure upon education increase hy nearly a million and a half in eight years without providing a.ny appreciable improvement in the, system. f certainlv had no intention either

lo belittle the \;orv excellent work done iv the education hoards, nor to assist

—if anyone is seeking that end—on bringing about their abolition. But surely when it is shown that many thousands of pounds a year could he

saved by transferring a certain amount of routine administrative work from tlie hoards to the central office the transfer ought to he made. This would not detract ill any way from the dignity of the hoards or from their usefulness. T! ie Minister of Education, hy the wav, lias stated definitely that he

s not contemplating tlie abolition of he hoards or the school com mi tecs, mil this living the ease my critics may lismiss from their minds any unrorthy suspicions my inadequate staloiiont of my ease may have provoked.

There remains that word “enormous.” I am not disposed to admit it was misapplied to the recent increase in the expenditure upon education, hut if my critics prefer to call it “very large” we will not quarrel over the measure of a mere adjuctive. The expenditure in 1914 was C 1,131,755 and in 1022 C2,.')50,7i!i2. In Mr Alfred Saunders’s time tho expenditure, approximately, was 10s per head of population. To-dav it, approximately. is

50s per head. . Of course every responsible member of the communty desires that the expenditure upon education shall he as generous ns the country can afford. 'l'lie Education Department is the very last place in which cheese-paring economies should he attempted. But wc have to ask ourselves what the country really can afford. Or, if my critics would rather put it another way, how much the country can afford to reduce expenditure on education. It call afford nothing that would make for inefficiency. But, as 1 am advised, it could afford to save a very large amount of duplication, unnecessary work, costly methods and superfluous frills, and a certain amount of waste. Mr Massey is at his wits’ end to make the revenue and the expenditure of tho country balance, and education should not' he the last of tlie Departments to give him the assistance he so urgently requires.

T am etc., YOUR CONTRIBUTOR