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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5335, 3 May 1878, Page 2

The election of school committees for the four districts of the city took place on Monday evening. In our issue of Tuesday last we published an account of tho election and the names of the successful candidates. These committees are the first appointed under the new Education Act, 1877, and their powers and privileges differ very materially from those of the old committees. The power of these latter was merely nominal, and they were looked upon rather as the servants of the Board, appointed to carry out certain details, than as constituting in themselves any distinct authority. But by Mr. Bowen’s Act matters have been considerably changed. The general Board has, indeed, the* management of all school matters in the education district to which it belongs. But in the several school districts thecommitteesare entrusted with very real and substantial powers. In the general terms of the Act, the entire management of educational matters within each district, subject to the general supervision of the Board, is in the hands of the school:committee.' Entering more into detail, the seventy-second and seventy-third sections state that the committee niay establish any number of required schools inits own district.. They may provide,, by building or otherwise, sohoolhouses, and may improve, enlarge, and fit up any such sohoolhouses, and supply school apparatus and everything necessary for the efficiency of the schools

provided by them ; and such proportion of the cost of providingT'fitting up, improving, and ' keeping in repair such schoolhouaes as may be prescribed by the Board shall be defrayed by the committee out of the school fund, and the remainder (if any) of such cost shall be defrayed by’the Board of the district within which the school is situated, by and out of any monies at their disposal.” This language is sufficiently explicit. It is evidently intended that the committees shall no longer continue to hold, as they have previously done, a merely nominal authority. We can easily understand that where the committee may be composed of comparatively inefficient members, the Board may by degrees and in an imperceptible manner encroach upon their privileges, until it succeeds in reducing them, as we before expressed it, to the level of its servants. But where, on the. other , hand, the members of a committee are men of energy and ability—men who have entered on their work con amore, and with the intention of devoting themselves to it—there we shall find that a very different state of things will obtain. Such men will feel that they, having set before them the advancement of education as the object of their exertions, and having acquired a special knowledge of the details of the subject in their own district, are the men best suited to have the thorough management of school affairs within that district; and the Board will acquiesce in this decision, for many of its members will be aware that living as they do at a distance, and being, for the most part, more or less engaged in business of an absorbing nature, it is impossible for them to obtain any exact acquaintance with the educational matters of each district.

We will now proceed to draw attention to another particular relating to the division of the powers of School Committees and School Boards. It will be noticed that in the seventythird section, which we quoted above, no allusion is made to the subject of the appointment, suspension, or dismissal of teachers. These matters, in all ordinary cases, are virtually left in the hands of the committee. The forty-fourth section of the Act directs that “no appointment, suspension, or dismissal shall take place until the committee have been first consulted.” But though, according to the spirit of the Act, it is intended those matters should bo left to the decision of the committee, in the forty-sixth section it is provided that nothing contained in the Act shall preclude the Board from peremptorily dismissing any school teacher for immoral conduct or gross misbehavior. Now, though wo can understand what is meant by immoral conduct, it is difficult to arrive at the exact moaning of the words “gross misbehavior.” The phrase is a thoroughly subjective one, and appears to allow far too great a latitude to the actions of the Board. It will be; understood that we make no allusion to the recent case of Mr. Doherty. With individual cases we have nothing to do. But it is not difficult to foresee that at some time, sooner or later, it will be necessary either for the Minister of Education, or for a Court of Law, to define accurately the true meaning of the words “ gross misbehavior.”