South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2365, 15 October 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1880.

The Waimate SchoolJComraittee and the South Canterbury Education Board are at present engaged in a somewhat remarkable struggle. We have already alluded to the causus belli without glancing at the details. The latter have a slightly scandalous aspect, and for the sake of a body presumably so respectable as an Education Board we should have preferred allowing the mud to settle. But as the Board by its obduracy has stirred the impurities there is no ftoed for further delicacy. The quarrel between Committee and Board has arisen over the appointment of a head mistress for the Waimate School. It seems that the Board has been in the habit, when vacancies have to be filled, of weeding out the ineligible from the

list of candidates and forwarding the eligible to the Committees for their recommendations. This course was apparently adopted with the Waimate Committee, but only apparently, for in reality the Board excluded from the list of the candidates submitted the mistress-elect of the Committee. To make the merits of the misunderstanding plain to our readers, we may briefly explain that the Board and Committee had arrived at foregone conclusions regarding the appointment. The Board had apparently resolved that it should be conferred on Miss Cramond, of the Timaru High School, and the Committee was anxious that the post should be filled by Miss Couper, a teacher with whose capabilities they were well acquainted. Both teachers were qualified, had passed their examinations, and stood on a tolerably equal footing, save as regards experience, in which it is said, Miss Cramond had the advantage. The Committee, however, had the right of recommendation, and had the Board been inclined to abide by its own precedents and to act in a fair and straightforward manner the application of Miss Couper would have figured among those submitted to the Committee. Instead of this the Board sent down three applications in which Miss Cramond’s was included while that of Miss Couper was carefully excluded. Obviously the selection under such circumstances was reduced to a farce, for the choice of the Committee was practically limited to one applicant, and that applicant the one favored by the Board. On the merits of this misunderstanding we need not dilate. The brief facts will enable the public to draw their own inferences. In some previous comments we submitted that the Board in arbitrarily limiting the choice of the Committee was exceeding its powers. We shall now go so far as to submit that the conduct of the members has been ingenuous rather than honest and straightforward. If they desired to appoint a particular teacher, they should have met the Committee in a candid and above-board manner and said ;—“Gentlemen, we have resolved to confer this appointment on our protege, and you may acquiesce, but we cannot allow you to interfere.” But they insulted the Committee by submitting the names of three applicants, and excluding a fourth who was perfectly qualified and eligible because they had reason to believe that this particular candidate would be approved of. The Board, we submit, lias done an injustice to the applicants, an injustice to the Committee, and the procedure it has adopted is not likely to elevate, it in general estimation. A public body should be quite above such petty deceits as appear to have been practised on the Waimate School Committee, and it is deeply to be regretted that an Education Board should so far forget itself as to set such a pernicious example to the rising generation. The committee of the school have called a meeting of parents, and it is easy to perceive what the result will be. If the parents stand loyally by their representatives, as they are pretty certain to do, the Education Board will have to eome down from its dignity. With the dexterity of a conjuror who tries to force a certain card into the fingers of the looker-on, it has endeavored, with a total disregard of the provisions of the Act and the procedure which has usually been observed in such cases, to impose a particular teacher of its own choosing on the people of Waimate. The School Committee are the managers of the school, and if they are supported by the parents, we imagine the Board will have some difficulty in forcing any particular favorite of its own upon them in the capacity of a head mistress. It must not be supposed that we have any desire to disparage the abilities of the lady who has had the misfortune to become a bone of contention in the hands of the Board. Miss Cramond has been placed in a most annoying dilemma through the impetuous and ill-advised zeal of her friends on the Board. The latter being simply a distributing body, and the committee and parents her paj’masters, it is easy to perceive that a false step in connection with her appointment must militate against her success. The old saying that “you may take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink,” holds good in this instance. If a School Committee and the parents whom they represent are resolute, it is impossible for any Education Board to force any particular teacher upon them. The South Canterbury Board, in this case, appears to have resorted to very unfair and unscrupulous tactics, in order to circumvent the wishes of the Waimate School Committee and carry out their own. Under such circumstances, the Committee will probably receive the hearty support of the parents, and if so, although the Board may insist upon the installation of a teacher of their own choosing, the Committee can stop the supplies. If the Board is wise, it will withdraw as gracefully as it can from the position it has usurped, and allow this matter to be settled quietly, by consulting the benefit of the school and the wishes of its managers. To prolong the one-sided struggle will only bring additional odium upon the side whose strategic and jesuitical tactics have already been quite sufficiently exposed.