CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 315, 31 May 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE HIGH SCHOOL. It is a pity that the High School Board did not adopt the rather extraordinary suggestion of the chairman on Monday evening to invite parents and others to attend a public meeting to hear and deal with complaints against the school. If we mistake not the feeling of the public on this most important subject, the Hoard would hayo experienced a pretty sultry time of it, and probably its members would have been asked to hand in their resignations. As we have said before, the Board is quite out of touch with public feeling in regard to the High School. Apart altogether from the standard of teaching and the methods obtaining, the fact cannot be overlooked that there is very little confidence in the school, and, we are afraid, will not be under present conditions! The teaching might be as high or higher than at other schools of a similar class —we believe that there has been a marked improvement in the teaching at the school during the past year or so—but the improvement would not alter the position at all. It would not remove the lack of confidence—prejudice, if you will—that exists and has existed to 'the detriment of the institution in the past. Some of the members of the Board have got the idea into their heads that there is only a small proportion of the public disaflected. Indeed, one member went (he length of saying that the letters which have appeared in the Press on the subject might all be from the pen of one writer. We can assure Mr. Fraser. the member in question, that he is very muchastray in his supposition. The feeling is general, a fact he would be cognisant of were he more in touch with the public on this matter. The feeling is shared by people most friendly disposed towards the school and its staff, and is not eonfined to one particular class. If Mr. Fraser calmly looked at the complaints that have come before us since Christmas, he would see that they were not

"inspired," as lie stated they all were. On the contrary, he would find that they emanated from all kinds and conditions of people, whose whole aim is to obtain the best schooling they can for their children, and who are not actuated in the slightest degree by animosity towards any of the teachers. A good secondary school in a community is an asset of great importance, for parents, in retiring to any place, are guided to a very large extent by the quality of the schooling available. If there is no confidence felt by local people in our High School, what sort of a chance have we of attracting this class of people, in competition with towns in whose educational institutions the public have the fullest confidence ?, This is an aspect of the question which the Board bave not fully considered. Mr. Dockrill complained that the Press took no notice of the scholarships gained by tlie school. "There were papers and districts in the Dominion that would consider the achievement a great honor to the school," said Mr. Dockrill. At least one of the winners received outside coaching; the other had very little schooling locally; and in the case of the Bayly Memorial Scholarships the educational standard demanded is not high. So that may account for the absence of enthusiasm on the part of the Press. Some of the members of the Board take up the position that they are not answerable to the public for the state of the school. Unfortunately they are not directly responsible, if they were, the public would know how t'o deal with them at the first opportunity. The constitution of the Board is a material drawback to the advancement of the school. Were the Board elective and responsible directly to the- public things would never have reached their present .Mage nor the school have suffered as it has and is suffering from want of public confidence. The Board, as everyone knows, is appointed by the Governor, nominally for a few years, but practically for life, a relic of conservatism or autocracy strangely out of harmony with the democratic spirit of the times. An endeavor should be made to alter this anomalous condition. Until an alteration is made, or the present Board resigns (as it could do with advantage to higher education in New Plymouth), the chance of restoring confidence in the school is, we are afraid, not very encouraging.

WHITE v. BLACK.

In the United States of America and 1n United South Africa the white citizens are unanimous that a black man who "insults" a white woman shall die. In Africa lately a white man led a black one out and shot him for "insulting" his daughter. The cable told us that the white folk were in entire sympathy with the self-appointed executioner. People at a distance are quite unable to grasp the feeling that the events which have been so common in South Africa stirs in the community. The feeling is that a black man is inferior to "the white man and should—as he has hitherto been—be subject to him. If the black man in South Africa were not absolutely subject to the white, neither the Briton nor the Boer could hold the country for a week. The subject black man who is not influenced by his educated emancipated and enlightened black brethren accepts the position happily and without question. He does not know his enormous power, and so does not use it. ho one in Africa dreams of putting the other side of the racial sexual question. The black man does not lead the white man who has transgressed the sex law in respect to a black woman to the back of the kraal to assegai him. But the white man's interference is infinitely more extended than the black man's. It has been said that if the individual white man is a law unto himself the blacks will seek reprisals, but this is not quite favorable. In Africa a white man with confidence in his own superiority and moral force cheerfully undertakes the control and guidance of hundreds of blacks any one of whom is his physical superior. This, too, in remote regions where there is no possibilitv of assistance from white people. The true danger in Africa lies in the fact that individual blacks, influenced by their "emancipated" brothers, conceive that thev are the equal of the white man. It is the business of the white man to fight this movement by every possiblo means, for its growth would mean the doom of the white people in South Africa In the meantime the racial sex question in Africa cannot be settled in New Zealand. The white Afrikander "knows his nigger," and he will go on settling accounts as it appears best to him. °