Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8859, 9 July 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES.

THE statement of the Minister of Education to the effect that the education vote this year will have to be for nearly a million pounds has caused soma of our contemporaries to inquire whether the cost cannot bo reduced without impairing ! (. ,;i i ■ : • The Auckland Herald | t.ug.; - in..; -• •’ ■ economy could be cii'eccou by dy.mating some of the Boards, anu pr >b:ibly this could be done without detriment to the work of education, and it would save a considerable amount of official expense. But there are other

and more effective ways of doing all the educational wort the State should perform, at considerably decreased cost. It must not be forgotten, in considering this subject, that since our education system was established a number of developments hare taken place which were never contemplated by its framers. For instance, the training ,of the young as soldiers and all the cost of secondary education have now to be faced. But a million of money levied on leas than a million of people every year for the cost of education is certainly too much, particularly when it is remembered that only a comparatively small number of the people are breadwinners. and a still smaller number

are wealth 'creators. The question the authorities should consider is whether the money spout is really required for purposes of education. It may be that tho State is attempting too much, and doing too much in a general way instead of utilising money for special purposes. In our opinion every end the State has in view in educating tho young could bo accomplished by making education general only up to, say, the fourth standard. From that onwards the question of whether the State

should spend further amounts on educating the pupils should depend entirely on the ability displayed by tho latter. A system of scholarships , to bo won in each grade from and including tho fourth standard would carry every deserving or able child on to and. through tho University. These scholarships should be numerous enough to meet all requirements, and their establishment should reduce tho cost of education if

THE United States JDepartmentJof Agriculture in its report on the year 1905, dealing with the subject of wealth production by farmers, after giving statistics, says Dreams of wealth-production could hardly equal the preceding figures into which various items of the farmers’ industry have been translated; and yet the story is not done. When other items, which cannot find place here, are included, it appears that the wealth-production on farms in 1905 reached the highest amount ovor|attained by the farmers of this or any' other country, a stupendous aggregate of results of brain and muscle and machine, amounting in value to 6,415,000,000 dollars. The deduction from wealth produced, made in the report of last year, on account of products fed to live stock, is not continued this year, because the duplication of produced wealth in the consumption of products by farm animals is much less than has been assumed, and is undoubtedly more than offset by the amount of wealth produced on farms which cannot be estimated or even ascertained practically by census enumerators. It might reasonably have been supposed in 1904 that the wealth produced by farmers had reached a value which would not be equalled perhaps for some years to follow, and yet that value was exceeded by the value for this year by 256,000,000. Tiie grand aggregate of wealth produced on farms in 1905 exceeds that of 1904 by 4 per cent. ; it is greater than that of 1903 by 8 per cent, and transcends the census figures for 1899 by 36 per cent., and this after a lapse of only six years. If there is no relapse from this high position that the farmer now holds as a wealth producer, three years hence he may look back over the preceding decade aud, if he will add the annual figures of his wealthproduction, lie will find that the farming clement, or about 35 per cent of the population, has produced an amount of wealth within these ten years equal|to one-half of the entire national wealth produced by the toil aud composed of the surpluses aud savings of three centuries.