THE EDUCATION BILL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 22, 24 June 1871, Page 14

THE EDUCATION BILL.

[lndependent, June 23.] No one who has given the subject of education much thought will dispute the proposition, that schemes of education are successful in proportion to the amount of their popularity. Let a scheme be ever so perfect, if, in its administration, there is little public interest excited, it will not do half the good of a less perfect, but more popular, scheme. The Royal Commissioners appointed by the British Parliament to examine and report upon the various educational systems in Europe, gave the preference to the Scottish, because, in its local administration, much popular interest is evoked, which has a beneficial action, both on the teacher and on the school. Let anyone who doubts the soundness of this conclusion, visit the Scottish settlement of Otago. In that province there are over one hundred schools — all under the management of local committees. This large number (equal to the number of the schools of the three provinces of Canterbury, Nelson, and Marlborough put together) is only to be accounted for, by remembering that the

early settlers came from a country where education hau long been prized, aDd where the popular interest had been kept alive in it by its administration being entrusted to local bodies. These settlers in coming to New Zealand, to use the Greek phrase, had changed their position —not their disposition. With them no subject was regarded with so much interest or importance, as that of a proper system of education. To ensure that their children would inherit, in a far distant isle of the sea, the inestimable boon they had learned to value, not only for its own sake, but as the distinctive glory of their native country, they commenced, as the very first duty devolving upon them as colonists, to set aside lands (one acre in every thirty) as a permanent endowment for educational purposes.

It is not our intention at present to dwell upon the Otago scheme, further than to point out, that it owes its success more to the hold it has taken upon the popular mind, than to any intrinsic superiority. It has excited and maintained a vivid interest in educational matters, which has acted and re-acted beneficially, in a thousand ways. Nay, we make bold to say, that inasmuch as it has stirred up a still greater educational enthusiasm in Otago than ever obtained in Scotland, it is even more successful than its celebrated prototyp®. Whenever an attempt has been made to introduce even a different system of organisation in schools from that which the settlers have been accustomed to, it has uniformly failed, and the institution adopting it has lost in popular estimation and practical success. Thus the Dunedin High School, the most liberally subsidized school in the world by public funds (when all the circumstances are taken into account), has all along been a comparative failure. We cannot speak confidently of its present state ; but a few years ago, when it had four teachers handsomely salaried by the Provincial Government, it had not as many pupils as a certain private grammar school, conducted on the Scottish mode, without a farthing of endowment or grant in aid. The pupils of the latter, moreover, were neither inferior iii social position, nor in attainments. The Superintendent, for instance, might be seen distributing prizes (bought out of provincial revenue) in the High School ; while, as an anxious father, he sent his own children to the other. This High School was organised after the Rugbcean system, now generally condemned —a system, by the way, peculiarly inapplicable to a new country ; and we venture to affirm that, if it is now more popular and successful, the change has been mainly brought about by adopting an organisation more in harmony with the predilections and popular prejudices (if you please) of the great body of settlers.

Wherever, on the other hand, the at tempt has been made by the promoters of any school to carry along with them the popular interest and sympathy, no matter if, in some important respects, the school differs from anything known at home, it has been uniformly successful. Of this, the High School for girls in the same city is a striking illustration. Already, the accommodation is found insufficient, and the lady principal is compelled to refuse both day pupils and boarders. We have dwelt thus fully upon this point, because we conceive that the Education Bill, now before the Provincial Council, is open to objection from the very fact that it has not recognised sufficiently this importantprinciple thatno education scheme will be successful which is not popular. The evils of local committees havebeen dwelt upon by speaker after speaker ; but their advantages have not (we hope this is no breach of privilege) been sufficiently set forth. To take away from the settlers the appointment of teachers to, and general management of, their local schools, and hand these over to a body sitting in Wellington, however popularly constituted, is simply to lessen, if not utterly destroy, all that interest in the school which is a stimulus alike to teacher and pupil. In Otago, for fifteen years, local committees have managed the schools, and that most successfully. Examinations are held, at which the parents and friends of the children attend in great numbers, and prizes, raised by subscription in the district, are distributed by some gentleman asked by the committee to examine and preside. In Dunedin*

such an examination lasts two or three days, and hundreds of parents attend regularly. The pupils feel that on their position in the school all eyes will then be fixed, and that a whole year’s exertions are amply repaid by the delight their success gives to their friends and the assembled throngs. Comparisons are then drawn between various schools, and—what is sometimes harder still to bear—the teachers may overhear that the grammar or geography or history is “ not so good as last year’s.” Eveiyone is interested, the proceedings being agreeably diversified by part music, and interesting addresses at the distribution of prizes. It is with teachers and pupils and parents a great occasion looked forward to with much anxiety and great preparation. . For a pupil to gain a leading prize is considered a family triumph—for a school to exhibit great proficiency a public glorification. Whatever tends therefore to sustain and" increase this public interest promotes, just as certainly as whatever tends to lessen this interest impairs, the usefulness of the school. Nothing we conceive can have a more ruinous tendency than depriving existing Committees of all management, and consequently making them take less interest in the school. Let them, as in Otago, be empowered to make appointments and manage the schools subject in all cases to the central board, and the evils complained of will soon disappear. We would implore the Government to reconsider this portion of the bill, and having carried the rating clause make a graceful concession «.o the opposition by restoring to local committees their power, subject to the sanction and control of the central board.

How a board of ten convened (we suppose at considerable expense) from all parts of the province are to manage the thousand and one things connected with a school which require immediate consideration, we are at a loss to conceive. The resident member of the central board may be twenty or thirty miles distant from a school that requires some local action, and even were he within reach, he could only say that as an individual member of the central board, he had no power to act. The central board could not meet many times a year, and these meetings (unless the members were paid) would be but poorly attended. Many a man now giving good service on a local committee would be unable, even if he were willing, to leave his farm or his business, to take a long journey to Wellington, and give advice about a school in some part of the province of which he may have no more knowledge than he has of Timbuctoo ! The membership of such a board would not likely be very eagerly sought after, and the elections would excite little interest. The inhabitants of a district would be gathered together to discuss educational matters only once in three years, and if there was no competition for an office whose duties are of no immediate or personal interest, they would never meet at all! Parents would cease to take the same interest in a school in whose management they have no voice beyond a triennial vote; nor would they likely to regard, with the same friendly solicitude, the success of a teacher in whose appointment they are not consulted, and whose professional efforts they can no longer efficiently second or substantially recognise. These are but a few of the objections that may be urged against this impolitic proposal which, since writing the foregoing, we have learned has been carried by a large majority. Is it not possible yet to reconsider it ?