EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3720, 16 October 1906, Page 2

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

Mr Hogg, member for Masterton in the House of Representatives, mentioned that a county schoolteacher had the temerity to get married, that having no place to live in, he and his wife lived in the schoolhouse porch and the lady cooked the food necessary in the partnership in the playground. Of course the man need not have become a schoolteacher. He might have been a farmhand or a navvy or anything else. Also he need not have got married. Also if he had friends in power he might have got a city school. All this serves to bring to mind the fact that although the Government allege that education is being put oil a sound .basis, such is not really the fact. The country pupil and the country teacher has few, if any, of the advantages of the town pupil and teacher, and very little indeed is being done at present to bring about uniformity,

Schools in the country are nearly always poor. As the educational system in New Zealand is free one wants to know how these schools can be poor. Presuming that every child in New Zealand is en- ! titled to free instruction, how is it that country schools have in extraordinary ways to find sums of money for various things ? Why is the country parent penaliesd and the city parent free? Why are train fees reduced for city and surburban youngsters and no attempt made to reduce the tax on parents where the only way to get the children to school is by cart or on horseback ? Why is the country teacher’s salary dependent on the attendance which varies weekly for many reasons among which are cows, housework and weather ? Why is it necessary for school committees very often to put their hands in their own pockets to help along alleged free education ? # Why is it proposed to spend many

thousands on technical education in towns, when there is no money j for repairs, schoolteachers residences, fuel for schoolrooms, feed for school children’s horses, in the country ? Why are the Boards ot education in constant conflict with the committees and why, if the utility of the committees is recognised, should members of Parliament go out of their way to ‘ slang ’ the committees, whose work is honorary and often honourable and self-abnegating ? -It is all very well for well-placed dictatorial old gentlemen in the .cities to talk about the higher education being free as well as the primary. But the primary education is no more free than the land is, for as long as country schools are taxed either directly or indirectly and many difficulties placed in the way of country children, the cities get all the ha’-pence and the country gets the kicks.