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Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2354, 11 August 1887, Page 2

Mu Launack, at Dunedin, denied Unit tliuro were dissensions in tho (,'abinet. Yet in tlio next breath wont on to state, that ho differed from tho I’roinior as regards tho possibility of retrenchment in tho educational estimates, and thought Unit Bir Hubert Stout would yet bo brought to see its feasibility. The latter is ono of those theorists who look at everything from tho high point of first principles, and speaks of tho indefeasible right of every child, to tho best possible school and university education at tho cost of i he ifftuto. Such a right is popular, and may certainly exist in the abstract, like tho right of every human being to have a good house, good food and clothes. Yet, if a man ran into debt to secure a good house, food or clothes, tho Bankruptcy Court will hardly accept his pica of a natural right to those comforts, as an excuse for his conduct. And such is tho position of tho colony at tho present Lime. It is all very well to instance Scotland, Switzerland, and Germany, but wo have yet to learn that their educa-

lional systems aro built up on a gigantic system of borrowing. We must cut our coat according to our cloth, Imping that by doing so wo may before long have a more liberal allowance of cloth, and may thou enlarge our educational wardrobe

Free education is altogether a misleading title. The present Government saddle local bodies with the cost of hospital and charitable aid, and call that retrenchment. In (ho same way free education simply moans that instead of each parent paying for his children’s education if they get it, ho pays instead his share of the general cost of education, whether his children derive any benefit from it or not. Sir Robert Stout contends that it is to tlio poor man’s interest to maintain tko higher standards, as he gets the main benefit, while the main cost falls on rich people. Hardly anyone, but a professional advocate, could put forth a statement so ridiculously contrary to fact. The proportion of children attending the fifth and sixth standards, is not much more than 12 per cent., and we all know, that but few men can afford to keep their children at school beyond the age of 13 or 14. It is then the richer people who derive at least 90 per cent, of the advantage of these standards, for which all have to pay, besides almost monopolising the large secondary endowments of the colony. Business men will all tell you that a sound knowledge of arithmetic, plus a good hand, are the main requisites in the battle of life, while almost all that school can do in other respects is to make reading easy and pleasureable. With such an equipment a boy has got a fair start in the real education of life, which is not to be got in schools and colleges. Again, from another point of view, the abolition of the fifth and sixth standards would enable head teachers to devote a much larger amount of time, care and attention to the junior classes. We repeat that we are not against higher education in itself, but we assert most emphatically that a continuance of State aid to it in the present financial state of the colony is a sentimental extravagance, which in a private person would lead to severe and well-deserved rebuke, if not punishment, at the hands of the judges in bankruptcy.