NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 185, 24 July 1869, Page 5

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

We cut the following extract from the Independent, showing that the advocates of a general, and consequent National system of Education are not confined to this Province. We coincide with the views expressed, and sincerely hope with the writer that Mr, Eox will initiate some scheme of the kind.

The article in question says :—“Two of the most important duties of a colony and a civilised people have fallen, between the General and Provincial Governments, into cruel neglect. The return of provincial revenues and expenditure for the year 1868 shows that with funds to the amount of a million and a half, appropriated by the provincial legislature, the Education of the people has come in for the wretched pittance of less than £34,000, something better than two per cent, of the gross revenues ; whilst immigration, one of the well-defined purposes of the land fund, has received less than £IB,OO0 —never since the days of the covetous old woman, who cut open the goose which laid her eggs of gold, has such fatuity been exhibited by an intelligent community. The Educational expenditure, in six out of the ten divisions of the Colony, has been purely nominal. Otago, Canterbury, and Nelson alone have made real provisions for this great purpose, Wellington following the smallest of the three at a respectful distance. Yet it is admitted on all hands that Education should be the child as it is the parent of freedom ! If the General Assembly aspires, as Mr, Stevens would have it, to absorb all the powers of Government, it should show itself worthy of the promotion by stirring in this matter, as it has often been called upon to do by Mr. Ball and other quiet members. The subject is obviously National, and should be taken up by Government rather than by private members. There is no possibility of pounding up ignorance and vice in one district. When it reaches high water it must flow over the country, and although local administration is of the highest importance to the health of a school system, the supervision and general scope of the system should he one and the same for the Colony. Is it too much to expect of Mr. Eox to give attention to this neglected subject during the recess ? To it would earn him laurels far more enduring than can be won in the hot political battles he most affects. The interest he has shown in the question encourages hope that he may be ambitious of the noble renown of conciliating the discordant elements of the country in a united effort to remove ytfhat cannot be regarded otherwise than asA-etanding disgrace to New Zealand.”