COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 284, 10 August 1910, Page 3

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

+. ; (By H.) A politician is what his electors make him. To keep his seat the M.P. must conform to the wishes of his constituents. When he does not fulfil their ideal, he has to make room for the popular candidate. Fortunately for the public school teacher and those under his charge, he is not required to face an election every three years. Obviously the better the understanding between teacher and public the more useful that teacher is to the nation. It is to create, if possible, that better understanding that the writer, who has a life's knowledge of the backblocks of New Zealand, has taken up his pen. By the passing of the "Compulsory School Attendance Act," a new duty had been imposed upon teachers, viz.. that of forwarding to truant officers names of those parents negligent of thoir children's education. The people of our island home make the laws, and require the teachers to be obedient to those laws. But what puzzles the writer is to know why parents often resent the teacher's action in doing his duty. I have even known Protestant people living in a town become so angry with the teacher for attending to his duty in this matter, as to withdraw their children from the public school and send them to a Roman Catholic Convent, where, as everyone knows, education is not free. In almost every little place in which I have resided I have known a boycott to follow towards that school where the teacher showed he possessed some back bone. Is not this a scandal? Such a spirit is calculated to breed official corruption. As a class the teachers are manly and straight-for-ward. Their characters are above suspicion. Le : ; us hope the unprincipled will heap no shame upon the teachers who, as a class, are longheaded enough to choose the fury of the gale with its temporary devastations than offer themselves a prey to a pestilence which silently and sullenly makes its invasion, hurrying its victims into an early grave. No noble minded person would stoop to coerce an official into neglecting his duty. if any law be unjust he moves for its amendment. But the Compulsory Attendance Act is too old a law not to find a place on the Statute Book of every civilised country. It is not generally known that Alfred the Great initiated this splendid law. He found his nobles were neglecting their children, and forced on his war-like subjects justice to the children Later in history, in the reign of Richard 11., we find capital moving for the suppression of labour in seeking to establish a law preventing the simple folk from educating their children. In those days it wa-i recognised that education gives power to the man and woman who possesses it. It is true, we sometimes find that an influential man n illiterate, but that is because his supporters are more or less like him. By its leaders we may judge a people. An educated and enlightened community has men of like character for its loaders. A lawless or ignorant community choose men of like traits of character as leaders. No one ever heard of a mob of wild pigs being led by a tame old sow, or a mob of wild horses electing an elephant for its leader. Nowadays, parents should not neglect their children, because their sons and daughters will have to take their stand in life side by side with well educated New Zealanders. Unless, like those with whom they will come in contact, the children of parents of to-day, will not be recognised, but will become "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Unconsciously to the parents a totally new environment is being created. When the children have reached manhood and womanhood it will then be too late to reap the benefits of the State school. "Reaping," I just said. Ah! that is an expressive word. Will there be anything to reap? Only those who sow reap, and childhood is the springtime of life.