EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2698, 26 October 1889, Page 3

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE.

TO TIIK KMTOR Stu, —There is a calm assurance about the New Zealand Educational Institute that compels admiration. Ac a meetincr of the Anckland branch held a tew days .since, a letter was read from the North Canterbury brunch of the institute, asking the Auckland branch tn co-operate with them in keeping members of the Hcu.se posted in educational matters, by supplying them monthly with a copy of the Educational Magazine, that this was a very necessary and proper suggestion, no one, with a particle of common sense can question, for how can members of parliament, who the teachers naturally suppose, are busily engaged in grinding their own axes, be expected to understand the various and manifold claims cf tho educationists unless they arc enlightened by means of some publication dealing comprehensively from their point of view with this important subject? And it is a matter for public regret that this admirable suggestion was not adopted. -But a hotter stage was reached later on, when the question of the appointment of inspectors by tho Board of Education cropped up. In this matter the institute tnko a somewhat different, thought no doubt tho correct, view to that usually taken by taxpayer?, who, in thoir innocence, imagine that tho labours and tho reports of the inspectors, are for the purpose of giving the public some standard by which to judge the results obtained from the vast sums raised from the people by taxation and spent in tho cause of Education. No, Sir, the New Zealand Educational Institute rises above such paltry public considerations, and rightly regards tho appointment of inspectors, as really being for the purpose of protecting and futhering .the interests of the teachers, and to see that no teacher is neglected or overlooked. At the meeting alluded to the institute very sensibly passed a motion instructing the Board of Education, as to what class of inspectors would be the most suitable. If I might humbly suggest, would it not be better for the institute to appoint the inspectors themselves ? It might save much unpleasant friction, and the institute would then be able to remove tho unjust anomaly which at present, we are told, exists in inspectors' salaries by raising the present pittance of £300 a-year and travelling expenses to £300 and 25s a-day expenses. And this the public will see at once is an. absolute necessity if the inspectors are to subsist upon anything but the plainest diet. All this points to the necessity for tho strong articles you wrote upon the subject Borne time ago, and is it any wonder that thoughtful electors turn almost thankfully to such a man as John Bryce, who ia one of tho few that may successfully check the influence of these" fast-growing guilds and vested interests, whose power and influence is directed, not to assist the colony or to forward the cause of education, but to servo their own narrow and selfish ends.—l am, etc., E. C. Shefherd. Whatawhata.