The Daily News FRIDAY, JANUARY 26.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8036, 26 January 1906, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, JANUARY 26.

EDUCATION IN TARANAKI. Taranaki is a land where child-slav-ery, with its attendant evils, lias its home and being. At least, that is if some of tho metropolitan papers are to be believed. It has been represented at various times that educationally the youth of Taranaki does not receive that opportunity for equipment for the battle of life, that is enjoyed by the children of other portions of the colony. Also, the children of the province, more especially in tlie typical dairying districts, have been represented as irregular school attemlei's, or as being so physically exhausted as to be rendered almost incapable of assimilating school knowledge. Exceptional instances of an allegedly overworked child having fallen asleep at its desk hive been described as characteristic of the conditions to be observed in our public schools. Naturally, one would expect to find the results of these conditions reflected in the educational statistics of the colony—to find Taranaki ignobly shown as New Zealand's " dunce," and as a gross abuser of the Truancy Act. But what do the statistiewyreveal ? Anyone who cares for mathematical relaxation, and will take the trouble to work- out the averages of attendance in the various school districts in the colony, will find that Taranaki shows an average attendance, to the total number on the rolls, that compares more than favourably with those districts that are not handicapped by bad roads and sparse population. Our district records of school results show that the average ability of the children is on quite as high a, plane as those of any school district in the colony. The ages of the scholars in the respective standards similarly reveal that our " mentally stunted " children are not, one whit behind the lest of the colony in pass- ■ ing through their standards. And, lastly, let our various metropolitan friends study the figures revealed by the various provincial, national, and university examinations, the results of which have just been announced The success achieved by tho scholars of the Taranaki schools should prove conclusively that in educational equipment, and in the extent to which the equipment is taken advantage of, Taranaki-despite the hardships incident to their surroun lings, and the disadvantages the children of the back-blocks -labor under—can show results that in tho aggregate are not excelled anywhere in the colony. "Child slavery," in its general application to rural Taraua'u, is a term of empty meaning, and the faithful chroniclers of tho cities, having been proved guilty of mis-state-ments, and of libolling this fair province, should look elsewhere for "copy." Say, fur instance, ii describing the conditions existio" in the various slums of their own cities, especially Wellington city, and in advocating remedial measures for what is a foul stain on the escntheon of this young country,