The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1878.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 24, 9 January 1878, Page 2

The Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1878.

The Education Reserves Act 1877 may be considered as an auxiliary measure to the Education Act, of which we gave an outline m last issue. It places Education reserves under what should be able management, is liberal m its principles, and is so general m character as to sweep into the limbo of dead things a mass of Acts and Ordinances that have been for years eminating from the Provincial and General Governments for the satisfaction of local and partial wants. It provides that a fourth part of all education reserves, Provincial or otherwise, vested or unvested m existing Boards shall be set apart specially as an endowment for secondary or high school Education arid that the remainder shall be set apart as an endowment for Primary Education. We consider the providing for the reg uirements of primary and secondary education m the one measure an excellent contrivance. It exists m this and m the Education Act, and serves so to simplify tbe whole question of administration as to be worthy of a general imitation, The system of Education brought into operation m New South Wales by Sir Henry Parkes dealt only with Primary Education, biit that was made to comprise classics and mathematics,— just those branches which m Athe New Zealand Act are reserved for the high schools. THe neoessity of having these branohes taught m our primary schools js obviated by the facile manner m whioh any primary sohool may be converted into a high school, and the: very- grave difficulty is avoided of having to furnish the primary schools throughout the land with an unattainable class of teachers,

The apportionment of the reserves as endowments q| primary aud secondary educaiiou will be made by the chairman of each Education District conjointly with ,the_ Commissioner of Crown Lauds for the provincial district within which, such education district is ; and the award shall be made before the end of next March. The reserves shall vest m School Commissioners five of whom shall be appointed for each Provincial district, three to be nominated by the Governor and two by the Board, These shall have the same power as the Boards to let any lands vested m them for a period not exceeding twenty-one years and to set apart any reserves as sites for public schools. All lands hertofore reserved as sites for schools will be vested m the Boards, and with the consent of the Minister the Boards may sell or exchange school sites when it appears advantageous to do so The Governor has the right of reserving waste lands for endowment of education, but his action therein must be subject to the ratification of the House. Section 20 reads thus : "In order to provide an endowment for Primary Education m the North Island, at least five per centum of the waste lands m each district therein open for sale on the first day of January 1878, and a like persentage out of all land over which, the native title niay thereafter be extingushed iv each such, district and which shall from time to time be acquired or purchased by or on behalf of the Crown, shall be reserved and set apart as an endowment for the maintenance of primary education within the education district m which such land is situated." These lands are to be granted m trust to the school Commissioners who will dispense the revenue accruing therefrom to the Boards for -the purposes of primary and secondary education.