The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1904. EDUCATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 33, 9 February 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1904. EDUCATION.

Mr Frank Talc, Director of Education in Victoria, told a Wellington Post representative that the New Zealand State system of education differed entirely from that of all of the Australian States. New Zealand had for a long time an Outside reputation of being particularly advanced in modern methods of primary education. In Victoria, as in the other Australian Slates, there was, for instance, pir-uetically no local control. The Victorian system was •centralised in the Education Department, undei- a director who had complete control of the whole system under the supervision of the Minister for Education (the Hon. A. O. Sachse, 0.E.). Tile whole of the operations of the Department, the training, appointing, promoting and disciplining of teachers, providing amid maintaining, of buildings, and tlie conduct of examinations-; in fact, every detail of administration, wus centred in the Melbourne headquarters. There wro some advantages in this system, but there wore many disadvantages, and. one result was the great lack of local interest in' education which was manifested by the Victorian people. It had been a [matter of great interest to him, during the week lie had already epent in this colony, to see how fully our newspapers dealt with educational toijlos, and to note how interested the public generally was in matters atfeatinjj schools, such, for example as the high sclnvol system, and the recently-revised syllabus. In Victoria, on the other hand, these matters were legaided as being -unite outside the hands of parents, ami as being matters of concern mainly with the Department. This attitude was felt by educationalists in Victoria to he one of the great weaknesses of their system, and it often resulted in a time of financial stress being taken advantage of in the form of an attack on the education vote by a needy Treasurer. if,, hcmlthv public oiiin-ion existed with 'regard to the system, Treasurers would not take advantage us they had done.