The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1873.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 131, 2 June 1873, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1873.

Gkeat credit is due to Mr O'Conor for tho able way in which ho brought before the Council on Wednesday last the important question of providing funds to meet the yearly demands of our education system. Not only bad the hoD. member evidently taken great pains to get up the facts of his case, but he spoke throughout with a fairness and absence of exaggeration that, he will pardon us for saying,, have not hitherto been the invariable characteristics of his utterances. Nor was the debate that ensued unworthy of so promisiug an opening. Member after member spoke in a business-like manner, and with a freedom from party spirit that was as refreshing as it has been rare. On one point unanimity prevailed. The necessity of maintaining our present excellent system of education in unimpaired efficiency, at whatever cost, was unquestioned, the special method by which this object was to be accomplished being alone debated. Several sincere friends of the system held that it would be impolitic to attempt to increase the direct tax on each child of school age in the present depressed state of the province, and that it would be better to tide over the difficulty for a time, either by increasing, for this year at least, the grant to the Board, or by letting that body manage with the usual grant in the best way that it could, by refraining from building new schools, and by entertaining no fresh claims, however well-founded, on its resources. After weighing all that was urged on both sides, we must confess that the balance appears to us to incline towards the scheme of the mover of the resolution, or rather to that part of it to which he gave most prominence, the raising of the rate on every child between the ages of five and fourteen to fifteen shillings, by which about £1300 would be annually added to the revenue. We are not prepared to say that such an alteration should be made at once, but it is well that the people should have it laid before them, and that they should devote their earnest attention to its consideration. The advantages of the plan seem to be manifold. The danger of the sudden collapse of the Central Board's operations that would inevitably ensue from the withdrawal of any large portion of the present grant would be, to a considerable extent, averted, and the not ill-founded complaints of those who, while they cheerfully pay the household tax of one pound, urge that the heads of families who derive the chief benefit from our public schools, contribute scarcely anything more to their maintenance than the childless, or the supporters of private schools, would lose much of their force. And, further, we believe that the imposition of such an increased rate would have the effect of adding largely and immediately to the attendance at bur schools. To obtain value for his money is an instinct deeply implanted in John Bull's nature, and the substitution of fifteen shillings for five would do more to fill our schools, and keep them full, than any system of compulsion, the enforcing of which', in the present state of public opinion, would probably result in tbe downfall of a system that has been so carefully built up, and which has now chiefly to dread tbe too zealous attenI tions of its injudicious friends.