The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1920. THE STATUS OF SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3575, 10 September 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1920. THE STATUS OF SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ”

There are few Members of Parliament who have had a greater number of country schools in their constituencies than has the present Member for Waimarino, Mr R. W. Smith; consequently there are few men in Parliament so well equipped for espousing the cause of country schools as MiSmith is. It has been the experience lof schools in this electorate to find Education Boards and even some crass-minded members of school committees opposing those principles of justice which Mr Smith from bis place in-the House so ably champioued a few days ago. He made an appeal that was undeniable for improvements in various directions that should, and probably will, be regarded as extremely urgent. To men with common judgement it is obvious that the question of incidental expenses, which School Committees are made responsible for, is one that should in the very best interests of school administration have been rectified long ago. Men who have been members nf school committees in the distant past, and up to the present day are fully aware of the over-large burden that committeemen have to carry if only any passable degree of decency of school surroundings has to be kept up, to say nothing about other matters of school business and general administration. It is what Mr Smith told the House: it is very difficult indeed to get the right men to act upon school committees because almost as soon as they are elected they find that they arc loaded with the responsibility of finding the money for incidental expenses of school management; they become beggars on behalf of a boasted free education system, or they try raising money by taking on the showman business. They have to get the money or the children attending the schools have to suffer privations and disabilities that no child during its period of education should be allowed to suffer. But this is a very old theme; Ministers of Education for many years have b°en urged by the more humane and con- j siderate Members of Parliament, from , Parliament to Parliament, to institute a regime more in accordance with our boasted civilisatipn, and we j still find the more humane, and the 1 more considerate men in Parliament," right up to this very moment, pleading the cause of our school children in the same old way, but with an added seriousness and importunity. There is a suspicion, however, that the words of Mr Smith are falling upon more sympathetic Ministerial cars, for from the Minister’s remarks and requests for definite cases mentioned, there was discernible a' measure of concern which augurs well for the improvement Ministers of Education in the past only turned the political deaf ear to The strength of the citadel from which Mr Smith spoke consisted in his assurance that he was not in any attitude of complaint, he was merely stating the facts and offering suggestions which he hoped the Minister would note, and verify, and then mete out to children and school committees that measure of justice they were entitled to. It is common knowledge that there is the greatest difficulty experienced in j many cases in securing willing men to take positions on school committees, and Taihapo is not without suspicion of people who having ’some axe to grind doing the detestable )

button-holing trick to get men to ac-

cept positions which they would not of themselves' have sought, the difficulties of which they did uot understand. The packing of either meetings, or committees of any kind was never for the public good, and people with fair and judicial minds never condone them, unless it is unwittingly and in a thoughtless moment. It is as other Members stated, there is a lack of attendance at meetings of householders to elect school committees throughout New Zealand, and Mr Smith’s statement that men will not consent to become committeemen because directly they take upon themselves the committeemen’s responsibilities the Education Board calls upon them to find practically the whole of the incidential expenses. It is obvious that so long as such conditions

obtain capable administrative men j will fight shy of school work. The best business men in the community | would readily accept the work and respousibiliy of administering school affairs, but such men refuse to be made common cadgers and showmen to raise money for the conduct of a free education system. The present Minister of Education has, by his administration of his Department, increased public faith in his determination to do all that is possible to expunge the repugnant responsibilities that are noWjforced upon school committeemen by Education Boards, and from his request for specific cases, which Mr R. W. Smith has undertaken to furnish him with, and from his past zeal in endeavouring to put education on a higher plane both from the viewpoint of teacher and pupil, we believe the day is not far distant when school committees will consist of the best businessmen in the respective communities. Goodrich, in his “Fireside Education,’ ’ states; “The cause of education is the cause of liberty. Nature and Providence

point it out as tlic great means of human improvements. Let us,” he said, “give to our School Committees a loftier jutch; to inspire into the teacher a more generous amhitin, and stimulate his exertions by giving him a nobler estimate of high vocation. Let us attempt to move every individual in the community to a better 'sense of his obligations to aid in. the cause of public instruction. ’’ it is. because. wo realise that Mr, R. W. Smith’s efforts in Parliament are right in the course mapped out by S. G. Goodrich that we are sptc»lically bringing them under general notice. In the past. Governments have laid themselves open to being with merely tolerating a necessary evil. How absurd to expect teachers to, in a general way, 'cultivate a nobler estimate of high vocation, while unsympathetic governments were virtually trying to starve them out of the teaching profession. Writing on education Horace Mann accuses governments of elevating the subordinate and casting down the supreme. ISTew Zealander? have brought • pressure to bear in ‘having the supreme elevated by making the teaching profession what nature and Providence intended it to he, at least, a long stride in that direction has been taken by raising that profession nearer to the eminence it will yet attain to. So that there may he no reproachful disparity between the condition of teacher's and pupils, Parliament is now turning its attention to improving the lot of the chiTuren.