EDUCATION BOARD.

Southland Times, Issue 905, 24 February 1868, Page 2

EDUCATION BOARD.

(XO THB BDITOB OF THB SOX7THLAITD TIMES.) Sib, — In our Educational Ordinances there are stringent clauses to secure the due qualifications of the teacher, but not a word do .we find in regard to the qualifications of their masters — the members of the Education Board. Of course it is to be understood that they are all men of liberal education — intimately acquainted with the peculiarities and practical working of the European and American systems— who have by rote the minutes of the Council of Education, and who llan thread their way through the intricate abyrinths of the Revised Code. A member of an Education Board who is not in the van of the general intelligence of the community, and whose ideas of the spelling and construction of Her Majesty's English are at variance with the first principles of the language, is an anomaly so monstrous that it requires the exercise of a vivid imagination to body it forth to the mind's eye. And yet I can testify to the effect that such anomalies do exist, and that too at no great distance from these colonies. I have had the melancholy pleasure of perusing two letters written by a gentleman who holds the important position referred to, in which all the recognised rules in regard to capitals and punctuation are set at defiance, and a mode of spelling adopted altogether new, which would place the writer on the lowest form of the junior division of our common schools. For example — such common words as "generally," " occasion," " deficient," " procedure," " damaging,'.' <fee, are spelt, " generaly," " ocassion," " deficient," " proceedure," " damageing," &c. ; and these occur in sentences in which — as the auctioneers say — the grammatical blunders are too numerous to mention. It mar be, that it is the mark of a great mind to burst asunder the trammels of conventionalism and to despise to write and spell like ordinary mortals ; but I cannot help thinking that " Bonny Prince Charlie" sank . many,;, degrees in the admiration-scale of his adherents, and in their ideas of hia fitness for kingship, when they read hia letters, which were almost illegible from his wretched handwriting, and his still more wretched spelling. His father's name, James, he always spells Gems; humor, he writes timor, and his sword was cut short into sord. Comparing great things with small, a member of an Education Board who , " Murders sentences, and tortures prose," 'and who cannot spell correctly the commonest words of his mother tongue,

loses rery much of the prestige of his honorable name, and brings into disrepute, not only the usefulness and authority of the board, but the sacred cause of education itself. — I am, sir, your's, &c. Scrutatob. Invercargill, 22nd Feb., 1868.