THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1874.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 269, 1 May 1874, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1874.

It is wonderful to us that the system of school government by local Committees works as well as it does. We refer, more especially, to country districts, where there is no gradual sifting process which, by a sort of timeprotracted natural selection, leaves a residuum of able and liberal-minded men, who, by tacit consent, are habitually elected at the annual statutory meetings. But in the country it is not so. As a rule, it is difficult to get a sufficient muster at an educational public meeting to form a quorum, or to elect a Committee, except each and all present constitute themselves that Committee. So little interest naturally induces the elected or self-elected ones to very speedily constitute a despotic body,.unceasingly harrowing the' unfortunate staff' of masters.and mistresses under them with petty annoyances unworthy of mention. Nevertheless, it is wonderful that, totally unwatched and unaided by public opinion, they do so well. What is this public indifference a real sign of? We cannot tell. It is not—for the sake of humanity, we hope it ie'-riot—-possible that parents are entirely careless whether their boys and gHa are taught anything or not— whether'they' grow up with a moderate amo.unt of education arid wit.h a good mor;'d character, which, as a rule, is bijult up

upon knowledge ; for the ignorant—let the exception be as conspicuous as it may-—provide the police court ' and the gaols with the majority of the inmates. Casting about for a reason, we are almost driven to an hypothesis that the apathy we speak of is an instinctive undefinable protest against the system of education in force—a half belief, half conviction, that it does not matter much whether Mary or John learns any thing at the school-or not; so long as he or she learns to sit still and keep out of -mother's way—that the real education necessary to the child begins outside the school: first of all at home; and lastly at the trade, mine, or service in which work is-to be sought for the stripling. The evil of this hypothesis, if we grant it, is that the indifference proves a want of knowledge that the system rebelled at, as we say, perhaps instinctively, is capable of amendment. It is an assumption of a Confucian doctrine that there is no perfection on what has been. Consequently, it . creates the state of things it believes in, and tuition remains as unpractical, unproductive, and barren a matter in our muchvaunted. schools as it has proved in the past, and, will still further pi ove in the future. We have pointed out this more particularly ,on -more than oneoccasion when dealing' with the High School. But it is not alone to that school that our remarks apply, but to all. In . all technical education is omitted, an education that ought to commence almost at the door of the nursery, and never ,be divorced from its natural consort of theoretical knov* - ledge. Technical, education may be taught more or less by itself, for the brain of the pupil, if moderately intelligent, is attracted far easier to matters ot' handicraft than to wastes of monotonous theoretical sounds and grammatical inferences, that are as desolate as the scorched sands of an Arabian desert. The introduction of practical education' at once is as invigorating on the young brain as the palm tree and well of water in the waste. A boy would, •we venture to say, learn quicker .square and cubic measure, and addition and multiplication of compound quantities, if he knew something about boards and flooring a room. Such a combination would be a double' gain, for the brain wo.uld be educated quicker while the hand was being fitted for its work through life, instead of being left behind to do what it can to make, up for lost time, while the overburdened head —overburdened by indigestible facts —throws offas quick as it can do the accumulated chaos of misunderstood knowledge that, unaided by practical knowledge, overburdens the memory, and, fortuuately for the victim, is quickly enough forgotten and cast aside for ever.

We confidently look to the future—we hope a speedy one —for the recognition of this principle we have so barely indicated : that mental and practical education are inseparably connected, and cannot be put asunder without producing'consequences fatal to the best progress of that community by whom such a divorce is attempted. G-reat Britain got out.of this difficulty and became famous as a nation by sacrificing theory altogether at the shrine of practice. In that country we find, still the skilful tradesman often unable to read or write. has outstripped G-reat Britain this last fifteen years in her mechanical products, by raising—by the engrafting of technical education upon the stem of theoretical scholastics mechanics unequalled in any country of, Europe in the work they are capable of producing. _So much so,_that i works of art, strength,/and utility, even in metals, are being freely executed, on English orders, by German firms at lower rates and in better styles than' they can be done at in the leading towns of England, Scotland or Ireland. A young country has no business to follow in the mistaken grooves into which older nations 1 have fallen. Has not all history been written for our benefit ? Let it not be forgotten that we ourselves are writing a page for posterity. -

We must again refer to the necessity of public attention being kept directed "to the opening up of the interior by railway communication. It is true that the Superintendent has continuously endeavored to lead the way in this particular. We ca,n well remember hearing'his views'expressed in the Naseby Masonic llall some four years ago, as to the wisdom of such accessories to, or, indeed; precessora of, settlement of the lands-—views exactly die same as he expressed ouly a week or two ago at the commencement of the tunnel at Deborah Bay—and yet these constantly reiterated opinions are supposed to be by many only the quickly-shifted views of a scheming visionary. Even while railway extension is progressing on every side as fast as capital and labor can. do it, the views we speak of are ridiculed as preposterous f-nd absurd. It appears io us the truth is that there is, as with the molluscs, a gradually fitting to and withdrawing into a shell or shape, which we in up-country districts gradually begin to. look upon as the world. j.t is forgotten that an interior district, of no great value maybe.itse]f, yet'ia a unit in the (progression of a nation, which, advancing uniformly with the remainder, tends materially to general prosperity that it itself very speedily shares in.

We have stated that the Superintendent is alive to the necewsitj, as a matter of public policy, of opening up the Shag Valley by railway. The (Government also—we have Mr. Bastings' word for it—are favorable to the early construction of a line as far as Waihemo, Now is the lime fur public at-

tention to keep watch, and ui'ge, by all means, a measure the powers that be are favorably inclined to grant. The more is this necessary through our petty systsin of Provincial politics, which too often places the initiation or retarding of a truly Colonial measure at the whim and beck of an odd vote or two, or, more ofteri still, to the unreasoning cry and clamor of some constituency happening to be blessed or .cursed, as the case may be, with one or two popular agitators. We have pointed . out to weariness the immense unearned value such a railway would create, by raising the price of the immense tracts of land in the district through; which it would pass, at present all unalienated from the Crown—a value - that would be so greatly increased as to make it quite a matter of indifference whether the actual traffic on such a line for the first ten years paid or not. We can conceive of nothing else that would so stimulate and foster mining, agricultural, and pastoral interests as such a line from Palmerston to. Clyde. . With timber delivered on the ground at a trifle over its cost price—instead of, as now, where waggon cartage has to be paid, more than do'ubling the cost—tunnels would be driven, opening up auriferous'- flats at present-locked up for ■want.of outlet (we might instance the auriferous gully and terraces near the line of telegraph above the Welcome Inn, Naseby) ; shafts would be sunk on to deep ground, as at Blacks, with profit and success ; leads would be followed, as at St. Bafchans ; and Huntings would be constructed in dangerous ground, bringing in water supplies hitherto undreamt of. To the miner, too, provisions, clothing, and mining apparatus would' be cheapened, and iron piping would be the rule instead of the exception. 'The agriculturist would get a market for his grain,- independent of the uncertainties of local demaud; and the pastoral tenant would get away his wool in time to command the first sales in London, instead of having to store the bales for months in shed and stables till some waggoner can be bribed to come and take it away, eight or ten bales at a time, at from £5 to £7 per ton. As we write we observe teams straggling down with wool shorn last year. This glimpse of matters as they might be—visionary, if our readers will—might be assured if the district would ro use itself to a sense of its importance, and not believe that because £2O, £3O, and even £IOO a ton has been paid for cartage that matters are especially pleasant when, by a happy chance, goods can be landed at £5. There is no reason why goods should not be delivered at :£V and 305., and wheat be taken down, as Mr. Macau- 1 drew stated, 'at 3d. a bushel. Memorials seem the natural mode of expressing a popular want. Could not such be framed independently in Naseby, Bt. Bathans, Hamilton, , and Hyde, praying for the opening up of the interior by means of railway communication. A local bridge or a local road are good things, but they are \ trifling considered with, improved facilities of transit to and from the sea-coast towns.