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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2461, 7 February 1881, Page 2

Thanks to the efforts of the Rev. George Barclajq whose endeavors to secure for the Timaru High School the exclusive pivilege of carrying off the State scholarships, has associated his name with the schools of South Canterbury, a new kind of educational infliction has lately sprung into existence. We refer to aided schools. Until lately aided schools were unknown. The financial exigencies of the situation, lately rendered it expedient that the small and useless schools which the South Canterbury Education Board in their wisdom fanned into existence, should be allowed to die a natural death of starvation, but the Rev. George came to the rescue. There are a number of schools in this district which present an average of three to live families with a schoolmaster devoted to each. In the absence of that peripatetic individual, the hedge-schoolmaster, it would be advisable that having been born prematurely, they should, be decently consigned to oblivion. To prolong their existence is obviously only to prolong an agonising display of educational decrepitude. Unfortunately these aided schools have been retained as pet encumbrances. Of course, when the Rev. Mr Barclay, as a member of the Education Board, took them under his paternal wing, he had no eye to the forthcoming annual election. At the last meeting of the Board Mr Barclay indignantly repelled the aspersions and inuendoes directed against him because of his action in connection with the scholarships. The purity of his motives in propping up these aided schools is no doubt unquestionable, but we have the significant fact; before ns that the annual election for the Board is

about to take place, and that ■ the particular corner of the district in which Mr Barclay’s influence chiefly prevails' is thickly studded with these Lilliputian' academies. The usefulness of these little schools can be imagined when we state that each of them has its committee, and each committee has as great- a voting power as those of Tirnaru, Waimate, or Temuka with their hundreds of pupils. Mr Barclay, we may state, has already been nominated by no fewer than eight Committees, while Mr Belfield has been put forward by half a dozen. It will thus be seen that unless the Committees of the South are tolerably united, the old members, assisted by these aided schools, will be restored to their seats, and Geraldine will continue to be represented on the Board to the detriment of every other portion of South Canterbury. It must not be imagined that we have any particuJar grudge against Geraldine or any other division of the district. Our wish is to see every part of the dis trict fairly represented and fairly treated in educational as in other matters, but such is our opinion of the persuasive powers of the gentleman who has lately represented that locality, that we think it would be an advantage for the cause of education generally if the committees allowed him, as the reward of his fatiguing labors re scholarships and aided schools, to enjoy a wholesome, if brief, vacation.