New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, DECEMBER, 19, 1874. OTAGO EDUCATION BOARD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 86, 19 December 1874, Page 5

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, DECEMBER, 19, 1874. OTAGO EDUCATION BOARD.

Mb Hislop, the Secretary of the Board, has lately had the misfortune to write a report, in reference to the appointment of teachers, which has failed to meet with' the approbation of unsuccessful candidates and tlieir friends. Our two morning contemporaries take part with these disappointed gentlemen, and are not complimentary to the good sense and right feeling of the Secretary. Mr Hislop has, it appears, stood in the way of a nice little job. Two university students were anxious to make a convenience of our public schools as a resting-place and a stepping-stone — the one to the Presbyterian Ministry, the other to some other honorable profession. But the Secretary of the Education Board thought that gentlemen who became candidates for the situations of schoolmasters ought to possess some special qualifications 'for the office ; and possibly he thought that it would be little less than scandalous to convert the public schools into a subordinate department of the Presbyterian Synod. Probably he did not see much difference between the appointment of a clergyman as schoolmaster and that of a candidate for the ministry who would reside in the house of his father, himself the officiating clergyman of the district j at all events, the comfortable arrangement contemplated by a promising Otago University student has not been carried out in consequence of Mr Hislop's action, and hence our morning contemporaries have made rather depreciating remarks in reference to him. The true friends, however, of our educational system — which is in reality at once sectarian and godless — will thank the Secretary of the Board for having prevented an appointment which would have afforded its enemies another argument in. support of their frequently repeated assertion — that our present system is practically denominational and Presbyterian.