HARAPIPI SCHOOL COMMITTEE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue XXXII, 9 March 1889, Page 2

HARAPIPI SCHOOL COMMITTEE.

A meeting of the District School Committee was held in the school-house on Saturday last, the 22nd. The members present were Messrs A. S. SherreLt, J. Ross, T. Rosborongh and J. H. Thompson, (chairman). The minutes of the last meeting having been read and continued, the chairman said that he should not have called the meeting but for a letter he had received from the Board of Education requesting him to bring before the committee a petition that had been sent to the Board (a copy of which they had sent him) and a most remarkable production it was. Before reading it the Chairman called the attention of the committee to the fact that the people of the Te Rore district had as much to do in the matter as Harapipi had, which the parties getting up the petition seemed quite to ignore, and also to another trifling matter, that it would be quite as well tu k»ep a little near tho truth in a petition that was likely to be mado public. The petition was from four of the inhabitants of the Harapipi district who had taken upon themselves to represent the whole, requesting tho Board to remove the present teacher.MrC. K. Comfort!), stating that he had never given satis'aetion as a teacher, charging hiin with showing partiality to some of the children to the neglect of others, and gaining favour by his affable disposition and hospitality (two very good qualities in a schoolmastei) and that it was no use expecting anything from the committee as they were as good as bribed by the above. Mr Cornforth has been teaching here for the last six years, and all these faults have only been discovered since the last examination, and, strange to say, only amongst the parents of those children who did not pass. Mr Cornforth, who was present, said that he was quite prepared to refute all the charges made against him, and that as Mr .Tames McGuirk had headed tlio list of the four who signed the petition, and seemed the most bitter against him, he would take his case Hist. Mr McGuirk complained about tin) poor progress made by his children. Now, the truth was that the parents were the culpable parties. Mr MeGuirk's two children had bi-en attending the school, or nominally doing no, for the last six years and a halt, and out of that had only attended 224 days, not one year's attendance. Now, this man had robbed his children of live years and a half of their schoollife, and then had the face to complain of the teacher. Who was the most to blame, tho parents or tho teacher ? He should very much have liked Mr McGuirk to have been present that night. Mr W. H, James was another on the list; his children had nominally been attending the half-time schools To Rore and Harapipi, but they had not really mado full half time, and when requested by him to send his children to school, better, Mr James told Mr Cornforth that lie could not do so, as they were wanted at home to help cam their living. Mr James had no one to blame in the matter but himself. Notwithstanding the bad attendance he had got one of them to pass the otli standard. Mr Comforth brought the school register for tho last six years, to prove the above, and the whole of the committee verified it as correct. In respect to tho other two who signed the petition Messrs Hodgson and Rosborongh, Mr Cornforth proved from the reports of all tho inspectors in the province, which he produced, that with one or two exceptions all their children had passed the standards at an earlier age than tho average As to tho other charges of partiality, affability and hospitality, it was a pack of nonsense and falsehoods, as tho majority of the inhabitants of tho district well knew. The whole affair seemed to have originated in the extraordinary success of one of the pupils, a son of the chairman's, but it was not fair to compare tho whole of a school with one exceptional case. What they must take was tho average of tho whole of the province. He intended sending the whole of the particulars down to the Board of Education as verified by tho committee. The majority of the committee declared that they were perfectly satisfied with Mr Cornforth's explanation, and that they considered tho charges made in the petition malicious and unfounded, and that they had no wish for his removal. The Chairman said that he considered the petition a disgrace to tho district, an opinion that was fully endorsed by the majority of the members present. —(Own Correspondent).