The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 26, 1875.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 285, 26 October 1875, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY. OCTOBER 26, 1875.

In another column we publish a communicated article on our educational system, but in publishing ifc we must not be taken as endorsing the ideaa it contains. In fact it should have been forwarded to us as a letter rather than in its present form, but as we are always desirous of affording every facility for the expression of opinions upon matters of public interest we have not thought fit to exclude it. The writer, under the cloak of a compliment to the assiduity and zeal of the gentlemen to whom has been entrusted the onerous duty of building up and superintending the system now in vogue, proceeds to accuse them of being " uninformed" and " uninitiated." We need hardly say that we have a far better opinion of them, and require something more than a bare assertion to that effect to convince us of its correctness. The principle of payment by results would be a violent change in the plan hitherto adopted here, which on the whole has been found to work exceedingly well for the last twenty years, and before such a change is brought about we must have some weightier reasons for its adoption than have been adduced by our correspondent. He appears to think that it will result in the teachers being better paid, but as there is not one teacher too many in the province, and as the fund out of which they are paid is limited, and is barely sufficient to meet existing demands upon it, it is difficult to see how the salaries are to be increased. On one point we agree with the writer, namely, that the teachers' remuneration at present is altogether inadequate, but we cannot see under existing circumstances how this ia to be remedied. The proposal to throw away the many hundreds of pounds that have been already expended upon our school buildings in the town in order to have one large school, in which to pack several hundred children of both sexes and all ages, is scarcely worthy of consideration, and we must pass that by almost unnoticed. As we have said before, we must have sound and good reasons placed before us for any great changes that may be proposed in a system which, though by no means perfect, has hitherto worked so well and satisfactorily