Education Conference.

Manawatu Herald, 20 July 1899, Page 2

Education Conference.

« The Education Conference, convened by the Wanganui Education Board to consider questions affecting the education system, opened at Wellington on Tuesday morning. Three sections are represented, viz., Education Boards, inspectors and teachers, the delegates numbering about forty. Mr Bridge (Wanganui) was elected chairman. In a lengthy and interesting speech the Hon. Nlr Walker, Minister of Education, welcomed the delegates' on behalf of the Government, to whom he said their deliberations would be of great assistance. He reviewed the questions which are agitating educational circles at the present time, and which are to come before the Conference. Referring to the present system of education, he said the secret of its success lay in the fact that it was a system worked for the people by the people, and at the same time it had served to cover a good deal of imperfect machinery that would not have done its work so well but for the good sense of the people behind the Act. There was another matter of great importance, and one which he thought the time ripe for a change — namely, freedom of classification, j This was a question that should receive great attention from the conference so as to enable him as Minister to really know what the united minds of the educational authorities thought on the subject. He could see a great deal of benefit for the smaller districts by the establishment of such a change as the freedom of classification. The questions of colonial inspectorate and a colonial scale of salaries must be approached by a great deal of caution as they struck deeply at the whole system. The conference adjourned till the afternoon.