South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2384, 6 November 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1880.

“What is baptism?” asked a-Scotch divine addressing his beadle one day. “ Sixpence to me and cigliteenpcnce to the precentor,” was the prompt reply. Some of the Education Hoards of the colony appear to be adopting an equally practical mode of looking at abstract questions. Although a free, secular and compulsory system has been in operation for considerable time it has only now occurred to them that there arc a great many children whose education is neglected by careless parents, and that the compulsory clauses of the Act ought not to bo a dead-letter. In Auckland considerable activity is being displayed in this direction and in Otago the police have just received instructions to stringently enforce the penal provisions of the Act against defaulting parents. What is the meaning of this rivalry over the compulsory clauses? How has this sudden and almost spasmodic awakening of the Education Hoards in different parts of the colony been brought about ? Why have the services of Commissioner Weldon and the energetic policeman been suddenly brought into requisition in carrying out the provisions of the Education Act? Is it the welfare of the children, or the expenditure of public money that is being studied ? If we vary the question and answer with which we commenced, we believe we can supply a tolerably correct interpretation. What is compulsory education?” Answer—",Cd odd capitation allowance to the Education Hoard and State school teacher.” So far us the Education Hoards are concerned their care is the schools, not the children, and their besetting sin is greed. It is this

vicious propensity that induces these strenuous efforts in the interests of the little waifs of the community. Every additional child scut to a State school means a clear gain of over TA to the Board—hence the utilisation of the police in the kidnapping of livo-year-ohl infants. It is absurd to suppose that these Boards, having slept over the penal clauses of the Education Act so long, would at this late stage call the policeman into requisition were it not for the commercial or monetary value of the infants. And yet we hear that the schools are overcrowded, and complaints of the want of accommodation and the inadequacy of the allowance for buildings and additions are universal ! Cant and hypocrisy arc to be detested, and we fear there is a great deal of both in this outcry about the necessity for enforcing the compulsory provisions of the Act. Ostensibly the Education Boards arc anxious that the infants of New Zealand shall not grow up in blissful ignorance, but in reality they arc going in for a money scramble. The policeman’s services are being called into requisition, not because of any regard for the welfare of: the children, but out of a consideration for the necessities of the schools and their teachers. Every day it is growing more evident that the maintenance of our education machinery is destined, if not interfered with,to become an outrageous burden on the taxpayers. The compulsory clauses of the Act arc used as an agent in a scramble in which the revenue of the colony must be the sufferer. Something Avill evidently have to be done to put an end to this scramble. With the equivocal position in which State teachers arc now placed, we can heartily sympathise. Their salaries and situations are in a state of constant insecurity. But the object of State education is to benefit the children not the teachers ; and however unfair it may seem to the latter the big education mill must be kept within reasonable limits. On all hands it is acknowledged that the staff of teachers in the colony is far in excess of the requirements of the children, and what with Normal and High Schools this staff is being constaidly increased. The result is a gigantic and rapidly expanding evil of a most expensive character. Some alteration in the present s} f stcm of State education is imperative. If the burden of maintaining State schools could be brought home in a direct and specific form to the residents of various districts there would be far less scrambling, less outcry for additional expenditure, and instead of the schools now in existence being overcrowded, the accommodation would be found so ample that many of them would be closed. At present the State school is being made a convenience for school revenue purposes; and, to keep up an unnatural growth of teachers, the lisping five-year-olds arc about to be rounded up by able-bodied policemen. The early age at which children can be sent to State schools tends to increase the attendance, and consequent cost of these establishments enormously, and offers a premium to parents for their utilisation as nursuries. Economy is being rigidly enforced everywhere, and a sweeping reform of the existing education system, with the view of reducing its cost to the community is evidently demanded.