EDUCATION AND EXTRAVAGANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume 2507, Issue XXXI, 4 August 1888, Page 3

EDUCATION AND EXTRAVAGANCE.

« TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —A correspondent over the mellifluous signature of " MeGilliphadrie " has recently devoted several letters in your columns to the education question, in which he has conclusively proved (to his own satisfaction) that the present education system is the cheapest and the wisest; in short, the most perfect that could be devised. I admit your correspondent's right to possess and publish his own opinion, and upon the same principle I would ask permission to express the belief (which is by no means confined to myself), that the system of public education, as it is carried out in New Zealand, has been a complete failure, not so much on account of its inordinate cost as from the miserable results which it has attainrd. Might I ask what is the object of educating the youth of both sexes, if it is not to fit thrni), when their time comes, to take an active part in the business of life as it is found in this colony, and what has the much lauded scheme of so-called free education, accomplished towards that end ? It has raised up an army of pupil teachers and clerks, who, when their educational course is completed, arc as unfitted, as they ate unwilling, to enter into any business that requires either energy, enterprise, or manual labour; useful knowledge which might be receivable to them in after life, such as dressmaking and cookery for girls, agricultural and industrial science for boys, is carefully avoided in the school curriculum, either for the teasons (paradoxical or it may seem) that it would savour too much of utility and common sense; or, what is more probable, such subjects are regarded as too vulgar and common place for the youtli of New Zealand to engage in. Schools of cookery and kindred subjects are appreciated and supported by the nobility of England, but would scarcely be expected to suit young New Zealand. That some change is needed in the subjects taught at our public echools is evident, when even one of our Auckland University Professors has hinted pretty plainly that if more time weie devoted to learning how to make good bacon and less to learning the names of capes and promontories round Siberia, it would be better. Then as to the cost, £500,000 per annum, borne by 200,000 producing heads of families, is about what free education is costing us, and while on the subject of cost, the manner in which the revenues aceriJßg from the large public reserves called "educational endowments," are applied, is instructive. If ever there was an abuse in this land of abuses this is one. Of course, I shall be told that the reason the whole income from this source is applied to secondary education is that any child of poor parents who shows special aptitude can, by paying a trifling fee, have all the advantages of a college education, which is simply another instance of how the governing classes of this country use the cry of the " working man " whenever they wish to obtain any unfair advantage at the public expense, the real result being that while the working classes bear the bulk of the cost of primary education their children, owing to the force of circumstances, being taken from school at a comparatively early age, others, presumably, better able to afford it, have higher gducationprovided for their children at

the public cost. The result of the selfish and extravagant system of administering State affairs in New Zealand has an apt illustration in the unwelcome fact that in Victoria the duty upon tea is being reduced from 3d to Id. Here it has been raised from 4d to 6d. We are being speedily crushed by taxation, and until our rulers are more animated by the same public spirit, which breathes in your recent able leaders, matters will not improve. As you have so frequently urged, extravagance (which in nine cases out of ten, simply means a reckless expenditure of other people's money) both public and private must end, and I would add in conclusion, if the youth of New Zealand are to l>n taught at the public expense, let them be taught something that will be of practical service to them in the battle of life, which sooner or later they will have to face, and which will also enable them to assist in bearing the load of taxation which their parents are now increasing on their behalf.— Yours faithfully, E. C. Shepherd. Whatawhatn,