THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2645, 25 June 1889, Page 3

THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

TO THE KDITOU. Srn,—lf someoni; (locs not come with a broom and sweep this higher education out of New Zealand it will first of all give us pandemonium, and afterwards as a people sweep us out of existence. "We are a now country, our wealth lies in capital and labour developing our land from a state of nature to a state of production. This higher education gives us neither capital nor labour. When our population is a million what will they be? Them will be 100,000 of real producers, the other 900,000 will be liviiifi upon that 100,000. These 000,000 will consist of shoddy professors, professors of everything under t!ie suu ; professors of mesmerism and spirit-rapping, professors of maternity, professors of old Parrs life pills whioh will warrant you to live for 170 years but will kill you in 170 weeks. Of course the whole 000,000 cannot be professors, the others will consist of men of the Oth or 7th standards ; they have no capital and it goes ag-unst their grain to work. What do they do? They prey upon the real producers, they devour the real producers. They are Civil servants. They get up and want all sorts of bogus speculations to get the honest man's money into their own hands toenable tliemtolive in a shoddy imitation of real wealth. Everything about them is shoddy, their thoughts are shoddy, their feelings are shoddy. To sustain their shoddiness they want <i bale of paper to produce shoddy £1 notes. Anything but work, and it is work that is wanted. This higher education places education first and bread second, this is putting the cart before the horse. Bread is first, education second. I have a neighbour who has lately got fifty acres of swamp ; lie is a 4th staudard man, he is into the swamp up to his middle draining it ; ho is making himself independent. If be was a (jlh or 7th standard man would lie be :> feet deep in water draining the ewamp and bringing the worthless unproductive land into a state of high production, and so increasing the wealth of the country ? Not hn ! work he would not, he must live at the expense of some other one, who would go into the swamp. He would turn into a philosopher and say that God made the land to support the people, he would turn a Greyite and would preach like a book for a laud tax, which in reality means that my neighbour of the swamp was to keep and support him in a state quite foreign to that of a L'ooil citizen. Mr Editor, New Zealand 'must indeed be a glorious country if 100,000 producers are to support 900,000 non-producers. If we export 1,000 sheep or bushels of grain, that is bringing the price of them into the country making it so much the richer, but we cannot export 1,000 of our Oth or 7th standard men or professors ; wo cannot turn them ii;to mutton or scones. In this country, and for lifty years to come, they are cumberers of the ground and lire devourers of l.onest men's hard, very hard labour.—l am, &c. Hakapipi. Harapipi, June ISth, ISSO.