The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1907. “FREE PLACES” AT A PRICE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1907. “FREE PLACES” AT A PRICE.

If a man came to you and gave you a nice present in consideration of the splendid work -you had accomplished and then asked you for the full value of it in money, you would think he was a lunatic. Therefore, the Education Board of the Wellington Educational District is a lunatic. Junior Education Board scholarships are awarded- to boys and girls. There is a keen contest for these places. It appears that when a successful scholar gets his scholarship he may attend any district high school of technical school, but that he may not enter the sacred precints of the Wellington College without paying the ordinary fees.; Why does, not the scholar enter the college and pay the fees without worrying to pass the scholarship exams, at all. If the Board wasn’t a fool it wouldn’t say anything in its letter to a successful scholarship holder about the college at all. Also if Wellington College was not the meanest seat of alleged learning in the colony it wouldn’t insult the holder of any scholarship by telling him where he might not go. There is a most conservative spirit in this college, and when there are bright boys from the primary schools who are entitled to euter the college free, the Professorial Board rises on its end, wags its ears, brays, and says it has no room for them. It is Untrue to say,

therefore, that the way of the New Zealand boy or girl is open from the primary school to the University. No body has any right to ask pupils to swat for entrance into a free place if there isn’t any free place. To congratulate a boy on his winning a scholarship and then to. tell him he has no opportunity -of using it, is as kind as inviting a blind man to see a' picture gallery.