HINTS FROM HANSARD.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 553, 11 September 1869, Page 2

HINTS FROM HANSARD.

EDUCATION IN TIIE PROVINCES. Mr Call introduced a resolution in favor of a general and comprehensive system of education throughout the Colony. Mr Stevens said :—The rate of contribution per head of the population by the different Provinces would well tend to show their relative positions in reference to this most important question. Nelson showed the highest rate of contribution per head on the .vhole population, namely, a fraction over ss. Bd. ; and Auckland was the lowest, its contribution being 3d. per head. As regarded the proportion of the population attending school, there were four Provinces which stood far in advance of the others. The proportions to population of children attending school stood thus:—Orago, 1 in 8 and a fraction, the children attending school numbering 5,285, and the population being 48,000; Canterbury, lin 8 6-10; Nelson, 1 in 11 3-1.0; he did not exactly understand the reason for so comparatively small a proponion, but the gold fields probably accounted for it; Hawke's Bay, 1 in 11 8-10. Hawke's Bay stood well in other respects, the average daily attendance at school beint; very good. Auckland stood next. The system in tbat Province, was very good in former times, and probably there were still remains of tbat goodness. But row there was a great i'ali between Hawke's Bay and Auckland; for while the proportion of population in attendance at school iu Hawke's Bay was 1 in 118-10, in Auckland it was liu 18. The other Provinces stood thus : —Wellington, lin 18 ; Taranaki, lin 21; Southland, Lin 38. He certainly thought that without doing away with the peculiarities of the different Provincial systems, bringing with them as they did these most unsatisfactory disparities—instead of leaving education to bo paid for out of Provincial exchequers, and at the mercy of those who were, to say the least, very eager for public works, and cared not how much of the revenuo was so absorbed —that it would bo hotter to have a Colonial system, or Colonial regulations, for the upholding and maintenance of public schools.