Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1205, 18 November 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1882.

The education of our Colonial youth is a subject which has found grave and matured deliberation in the minds of Colonists generally, and legislators in particular. It cannot be doubted that New' Zealand compares proportionately favorably with older Colonies both in the class of education she has inaugurated and the progress made by the youth receiving tuition: But while we have been successful in the pupils, we have been so, to a great extent, at the expense, both temporal and mental, of those whom we have so fortunately selected to guide and train the minds and morals of our children. Notably among the Civil Servants of the Colony, schoolmasters, both under the Board and not under it, are the worst paid ami worst treated men in the whole service, Having under their charge the cultivation and welfare of those nearest and dearest to us, they receive in return for care and attention, second in value to nothing but that of a parent, a recompense which we should never think of offering to a stud groom or an average trainer, for the very simple reason that tee know they would refuse if. Why then, is this ’ Why is it that inert from whom we demand education, patience, tact and evenness of temperament such as very few of ourselves are possessed of, and to whom we entrust a responsibility in the education of our rising families which is either inconvenient, irksome, or impossible to ourselves, should be paid at a lower rate of wages than our servants who arc employed to look after the welfare of our horses and dogs? Is this not a monstrous anomaly? We earnestly call the attention of Mr. Allan McDonald, Sir George Grey, Mr. W. Swanson, Mr. Seymour George, and other gentlemen having the will and the power necessary to the amelioration of the position of school teachers generally, to the statements that we now bring before them. We do not so much in this article propose to deal with schools that are under the Board as with those which conic under the denomination of “ Native Schools,’’ but which are in reality used by both races without distinction, Regarding tho former, who number about 1200 in all, we propose to treat in a future issue at length, although with exactly the same object as our present one, i.e., the amelioration of their condition. Presently we confine ourselves to the Native Schools, of which we have been enabled lately to visit a few within this district, and to the high merit and conduct of which we can with pleasure testify. It must be remembered that these gentlemen are treated under the regulations affecting Civil Servants while only receiving a modicum of the pay, without a prospect of future advantage by pension ; without receiving present emolument which might enable them to lay by a few pounds for old age, or to use in case of unexpected sickness affecting themselves or their families. They are debarred on pain of dismissal—vide the miserable case of Mr Faiinie in Dunedin—from writing to the Public Press, and are in fact condemned to luffer without crying out, and without Jetting their grievances be known in quarters where redress might fairly lie looked for. But the Press, argus-eyed, and ever willing to champion the cause of the injured or unjustly used, is not to be silenced, ami in loud loud tones it calls upon the Legislature of the Colony by a very little act of right and justice to undo ami rectify a shameful and crying evil in this regard. Take the position of a “Native School-master,” an educated man, whose brains would most probably have placed him far in advance of his more fortunate competitors in the race of life had he obtained a “ fair start,” having his “locale” in some isolated place with a view to the education of some 40 or 50 Maori and halfcaste children and a few Europeans who form his raw material, out of which he has to shape and develop that mystery of mysteries, a mind '. Do we know aught of the disappointment, the discouragement, the sickening sense of failure which must, in many instances be the result of that man’s daily lalxir, and can wc recognise the almost heart breaking (to a tutor) fact that just as he is beginning to realise what be considers the acme of reward of his arduous labors ami his many struggles against pride and temper in the rapid progress Lis pupils are making, and the brilliancy they are beginning to evince in their aptitude for study, Hey! Presto the rising pupils arc removed to a higher school, and the teacher commences de novo upon a weary repetition of the raw material. These gentlemen are allowed a house. These buildings are dignified by the name of “House,” but are thoroughly unworthy’ of it, being simply a cheap and small and uncomfortable makeshift and two acres of land, while they hold their position, with salaries ranging say from £lOO, to an extreme (only we believe extant in one or two instances, and not by any means to be looked forward to) £2OO, but we may fairly put down their salary as an average at £l2O per annum, out of which they have to find themselves and their families in every possible want. There is no “Teachers Fund ” from which they could possibly derive any benefit: ami although during the late cbeese-paring system of the 10 per cent, deduction they were treated as . civil servants, they arc not allowed to share j in any benefits assured to that class. Wc , earnestly commend the subject to the care- i ful attention of our readers, anxious that discussion should be given to the mattter, , and that a deserving class of men should i

be placed on a footing e* security as affects theii position, and their future to which the care and attention We demand from them, and the gpU.My onerous ami re.-iponsible nature of tueir duties as the guide and mentor of the coming generation, thoroughly and fairlv entitles them. A letter from a correapondenti signed “Pei’ Aspera ad Astra’ 5 makes a proposal which wc think tuo JilcdlMi a dub, viz., to it BCilDolniastbr with b retiring life interest ill .lands apart from the Scene of his sdhoiaeiic dilties, where, when compelled by 014 age or sickness to give up his present avocation he might retire with.a prospect of eking out a living (ami we think it would be a Hying only) foi the remainder of his days, such land reverting to the Government at his death, We do not oppose eUcli a A /nemo, but wc think that aiiy Government having theducational interests of the rising generation at heart will be willing to act more liberally than this. We ask most earnestly the co ci pc rat Joli of Sir Gr.-uicr, Gria and all other.* having a due regard and veneration for learning U/ way/ ukaiw or />.,•.n. in obtaining a security for the better education of the young by the amelioration of the present condition of those whose duty it becomes to instruct and guide them,