The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1888. THE EDUCATIONAL OUTLOOK.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2843, 9 March 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1888. THE EDUCATIONAL OUTLOOK.

On Wednesday last a deputation waited upon tho Hon the Minister for Education to urgo upon him the necessity of making a more adequate provision for school buildings in tho Wellington district. Mr Fisher expressed his views on the position of the educational question with great frankness and openness, and though very many persons will (lifter with him on some of the opinions he uttered, they will give him every credit for candor and sincerity. We do not like the educational outlook as sketched by Mr Fisher. It presents alternative courses which will be most unpalatable to colonists. It does not follow, however, that because Mr Fisher's forecaste is a disagreeable one that it should not receive the utmost consideration. Mr Fisher looks all difficulties in the face, and says that the colony must retrench in its expenditure upon education. This, lie intimates, may be done by the substitution of a cheaper national system, but at the same time he admits that deterioration in the quality of the education given would be the concomitant of a less expensive system. Times are bad in New Zealand, and if they do not mend, this alternative may lwvo to be accepted at whatever cost it may be to our pride. If New Zealand has ever to take the position of supplying superior education to halfstarved children, then the cost must come down. Another fate which threatens us, according to Mr Fisher, is the prospect of an education rate 011 property or a school fee: Against any attempt to augment the education fund by these means there will be gravo objections, Property already bears sufficient burdens, and it will be impolitic to add an additional one, Putting another farthing on the property tax would 110 doubt help the education fund, but it would ten 1 to cripple all industrial, agricultural, and pastoral enterprise in the colony, The institution of school fees would be dead in the teeth of popular sentiment and would also be an injudicious and costly method of obtaining revenue. Wo sincerely trust Mr Fisher will not ask the House either for a school fee or for a school rate. It is very possible, however, that he may set up a school feo or a school rate to persuade the House into endorsing some plan for reducing the cost of our present system. Mr Fisher has not, as yet, solved the difficulty of the situation. Borrowing for educational purposes must, lie declares, cease, and if so. the Colony must be prepared either for increased taxation or for diminished expenditure, Tne only other alternative, probably, would be to give primary schools the benefit of tho enormous educational reserves scattered throughout tho Colony, The outlook is undoubtedly gloomy. Mr Fisher plainly asks the Colony to face some very disagreeable alternatives, but we venture to hope that he himself when Parliament meets, will have formulated some proposals which will avoid the. disruption of existing establishments on the one hand, and the imposition of new taxation on the other,