SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, NOV. 14, 1894. SCHOOL ATTENDANCES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4876, 14 November 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, NOV. 14, 1894. SCHOOL ATTENDANCES.

The new School Attendance Act is an ingenious .measure designed to fill our Schools, but one which is by no means scrupulous as to,the means which are taken under it to accomplish its object. If a parent fails to Bond a child to school; he is to bo I sued and made to pay a ; fine up to ! forty shillings, and thon sued again until he or she complies with'the law. Again, if a parent sends a child to school irregularly, that parent is liable to a penalty of two shillings per week. It is quite possible under the measure to iuflict fifty pounds worth of penalties in a twolve month on an obdurate and poverty-stricken parent, so that an almost unlimited ' power of compulsion is placed at tho, disposal of the School Committees. Thon an inducement is hold out to Committees to wage warfare on parents by giving them tho fines and penalties which are levied under the Act, and as Committees are frequently impecunious there will be a temptation for them to raise revenue by this new method, The main objection to the Act seems to be ;that the fines and penalties will be raised from the. very poorest persons iii the community, out. of, parents from whom it will be an absolute cruelty to 'collect them. It. often happens that a ■ poor woman ; has to keep a child at 'home to mind younger children while she'goes out to earn bread for her family, or she is absolutely unable to provide clothing suitable for the children .whom; she may be called upon to send. In such cases the penalty under the new, Act would be a positive cruelty. , We can only hope that the adminiatratiori of the Act will be moremerciful than the letterof it.-' This School Attendance Act, like most of Mr Reeves' measures is better in theory, than in practice. 'Almost all his legislation is of an undesirable kind, bristling with pains, penalties, and,, compulsions. 1 With the best intentions in the world, be is very mischievous, We have to thank lijm frit the great falling off in school passes this year to which we called attention, in our last issue, Half the children in the higher, standards of the. schools have beeii disrated this year because ) tliey could not do some catchy sums which hp had prepared for tlienl by some Professor of Conundrums. He is always giving us surprises of some kind .or another, and this last one of School Attendances is a fair sample of them. There will be trouble in tjie jj; befp the year is oni, 1)4 ptopably next session it may lie modified. Most of the Acts passed now-a-days are so ill-considered that they have to be mended before 'they are twelve months pld,"r: