HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3755, 23 February 1907, Page 3

HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION.

Mr Adams, head master of the local State school, reported as follows on the above subject to the school committee, at its monthly meeting on Thursday evening : Never before have the grand benefits of a sound elementary education been so easily placed within the reach of the poorest in the land, yet it is unfortunately true that a very large number of our children do not reap a tithe of the advantages so freely offered to them. Large numbers of parents cut short the school life of their children the moment they have reached the standard and age of their exemption, and the result is that'the imperfect and stunted education their children have been able to receive rs of little or no use to them,, and the years spent at school are to a large extent wasted time, because cut off too soon. It must be borne in mind that a child’s education proceeds in stages. Just as raw material passes through many separate processes before it becomes a finished product, so the child is passed through many stages before it is turned out as the finished article of the elementary school. In the elementary schools the teachers are mostly preparing the'soil for the good seed which is to be sown later on. A good education is undoubtedly a jgood investment. Few working men can look forward to leaving a fortune behind them for their children and nearly all are anxious that their children shall begin where they - leave off. _ Every parent, however, can give his child 'what is far better and more enduring,than money and houses, and that is a good education. Every day brains are needed more and more in manufacturing and industrial life—in the factory, workshop, warehouse, office and on the farm. The value of a thorough education fitting a young man for his life work is no longer a debatable question. The recent report of the United States Bureau of Education shows that a boy \yith a common school education hss practically one chance in 9000 of general recognition as a successful man in some department of hutp.au endeavour and usefulness. ;• A h|gh school education increases his iphances of such success by about twenty-two times, while a college education gives a young man about ten times the probability of success, and advancement possessed by- the high school graduate, or about 200 times the opportunity open to a boy with only a common school education. But there are better and higher things likely to result from a full complement of the high school course. Education can raise the tone of life in working hours and out of them. It gives a man or woman other interests in life besides getting and spending. It leads to the world of books, revealing the thoughts, conclusions,facts, information, etc., of all learned men of bygone days. It opens up a mine of wealth, delight, and profit. It gives a pure and elevating hobby that fills up the leisure hours costing little and yielding much. In short, it can elevate and civilise the whole man. I therefore earnestly ask you, gentlemen, to consider if the time is not dpe when the youth of Foxton shall nodonger be denied the splendid opportunities which are offered by our Government—“free, gratis, and for nothing, ’’ in the establishment of a high school in our midst. There are parents in Foxton who are now compelled to send their children to Wellington, Wanganui, Masterton and elsewhere, costing them anything between £6O and £IOO per head per annum for education which ought to be provided for at their very doors. It can only be reasonably, expected that these would all send their children to , the Foxton District High School, where they could live under their own parental care and receive free of cost as good, if not better than what they are now paying for now. There must be many parents in our midst who have boys and girls at home and out of work who would surely make some small ■.sacrifice to thoroughly equip their ■children, if the opportunity were provided, for the battle of life. There are youths from the Foxton v . (district attending the Palmerston High School whose parents would much prefer to send them to a similar school in their own town. There are boys and girls attending our own school who would be most anxious to change rooms for a secondary course. There must be at least a few country children who have passed Standard VI. who would come in on the establishment of a High School in Foxton. And “ last but not least,” we have a splendid building, with an exceedingly suitable room awaiting occupation, and which the Department is anxious to furnish for high school purposes free of cost to the Committee, as also to pay the salary of a suitable teacher. All we require is to get a guarantee of attendance for one year, from the parents of say twenty youths who have passed Standard (' VI., and the success oi the Foxton High School would be assured. Surely these splendid opportunities cannot be ignored. The parents of twenty children will awt charge their consciences with the knowledge-thar they have not done their utmost for those confided to their care and lor the advancement of their town in general. At the'present moment I cannot recall a single town with the population ofFoxton in the North Island liV, that has not availed itself to the full of the educational privileges offered by the Central Department in the establishment of high ~ ‘