EDUCATION.

Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 57, 27 October 1875, Page 2

EDUCATION.

(to the editor of the pate a mail). Sir, —It would appear that Mr Lee, the Inspector of Schools, whose services are periodically retained by the Patca Education Board, does not confine himself to the duties devolving upon him as Inspector. During his recent visit, a considerable amount of unfair pressure was brought to bear in certain quarters, with a view to increase the attendance of girls at the Patca public school, and to the detriment o£ the young • ladies’ school at Carlyle. It would be a matter for regret that such an unwarrantable.. stretch of duty should pass by unnoticed, as ;it by -no 1 means follows that because an. .education taxis levied, and a public school established, parents should be in any degree coerced into sending their children to the public school. Referring to your, issue .of . the 13.th. inst., Mr’Lice is reported as saying, “It was onlj T reasonable to believe that children were likely to receive a sounder education from; certificated 'masters than attending private .schools where teachers were perhaps -unqualified. ” There’ is - a plausible appearance of truth in what he says, but will the statement bear analysis? What are the main objects of state education ? To provide better education than private schools ? No. To frustrate private enterprise in education ? No. What then ? To afford cheap but sound education to the children of all such as are unable to pay for private but not necessarrily inferior education. Mr Lee’s statement leaves room for the inference that teachers of private schools not holding such certificates are liable to the assertion that they arc “ perhaps unqualified.” Such a state of things is manifestly unjust, and..while feeling admittingly the great blessings which state education confers on the country, I fail to see how any one in the all-important position of an Inspector of Schools should be justified in making such a broad statement as the one refereed to — a statement that, by implication, lays a general charge of incompetency against teachers of private schools. -We are fortunate'in possessing' such an institution asj a girls’ 1 School in Patca, and the Inspector of Schools, of ‘ all persons, should "be tbc last to cripple private enterprise in that direction. Apropos of certificates, I may mention that.the pupil-teachers so highly, eulogized by the -Inspector,, only left the girls school some, six -weeks ago !to take the appointment she now . bolds. This fact should commend our young ladies’ school to the favorable notice, p’fi parent 6, who prefer sending their llahglit’grs to a private institution instead of a mixed school;. Common justice calls for a protean against any interference with the which all parents shoal*!-bo/aHp^edJo exercise in the education' of-their- children, and I submit these few" remarks, Mr Editor, to the special notice both of the Education Boar 1, arid their Inspector. I am, &c., VINDEX.