THE HIGH SCHOOL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 226, 30 January 1911, Page 4

THE HIGH SCHOOL.

To the Editor. Sir,—l was not greatly surprised to read the other morning that the High School Board had met in solemn conclave to discuss the able criticism of the school by "Critic," who can now rest assured on this account that there was some justification for the strong language he used. Evidently the governors of the school had had some idea that there was room for improvement, but had just let things go along in a lackadaisical style. But stay! They did d* something recently. Didn't we read oi the adoption of a new motto? None of your stereotyped hide-bound, musty, classics, such as are adopted, revered and and honored the wqrld over by unive** sity and high school students, but something distinctive, something that soars high in the heavens—"runga riro," which being interpreted meaneth "above all" Excellent sentiment, even if expressed in Maori, hut, having expressed the sentiment, and adopted the highfalutin motto, what steps did the allwise governors take to justify the selection? In order to assist the school staff to remedy the.obvious weakness in the classics, or mathematics, or English, or some other subject, they launch an agricultural course! We are to turn out farmers, having failed to educate scholars, and a very practical, very useful suggestion, too. But will the muchboomed and little-used boarding school, the much-boomed new science room, and the agricultural study in themselves suffice to lift the High School out of th« rut? No. If there is to be an improvement—and there must bc-r-the governors themselves know where to use the pruning-knife, and they know full well well where the "expert" will find it, 1 he* comes. But the Department of Education is not likely to bother itself in finding all the weak spots in a scltool the managers of which are so lacking in backbone. It is the duty of the governors, in my opinion, to get right i into this business in a whole-souled fashion and prove themselves worthy of ! the great trust reposed in them; to make the New Plymouth High School such an institution that the parents of the district will demand better train ' facilities in this direction in order to enable their children to come here, instead of gladly accepting the opportunity to send them off to a more vigorouslyconducted institution, either at Stratford, Nelson, or Wanganui; and, in the near future, to have boys from all parts of the Dominion studying and receiving their education in New Plymouth, instead of, as now, many promising New Plymouth boys being scattered in the various other secondary schools of the Dominion.—l am, etc., MATER.