CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 54, 5 March 1888, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION,

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — Your article of Saturday on the question of dispensing with technical education in our schools was well-timed and forcible. I give full credit to our Education Board for absolute sincerity, and an honest desiro to do the very be.sb in their present straitened position ; but 1 hope they will reconsider tho matter before they dispense with technical drawing and education. Our boys cannot all get a living in ±\e\v Zealand, and whether they go to Australia, America, Britain. Germany, Belgium, France, or other civilised countries, they will have to compete with those who have had and are getting technical education. Dr. Laishley's valuable report shows clearly how other nations appreciate technical education, and as Mr Robinson's tuition is all the technical beaching imparted in our primary schools, the Board ought to consider again carefully before dispensing with him to save about £2CO a year. The Royal Commission in England recommended that pupils in the upper standards should be taught mechanical and freehand drawing, and this recommendation was adopted- The drawing is now under the direction of the Science and Art Department, but further ellbrts are being make to equip English boys for the battle for existence. A " Technical Training Bill " is coming before the next session of Parliament in England with a view to placing English boys on a par with tho Continental boys ; and it would be a retrograde stop on our part to abolish the only meagre measure of technical education we have in our primary schools in Auckland. Even with tho little we have had our boys have done well. The work at the Industrial Exhibition shows what our boys can do with only one lesson a week, and I feel sure that New Zealand boys will nob bo distanced in the race for bread if we only give them a fair start. Tho Inspector, Mr It. J. O'Sullivan, in his report for 1886, said : " Mr Robinson seems to have got over the difficulty of making elementary mechanical drawing part of a school course, which has hitherto seemed almost insurmountable ;" and in 1887 Mr Goodwin reported : " A very great advance iv geometrical and scale drawing." To abolish it now would be to waste what has been gained, and to deprive our boys of an essential element of education. Jf necessity forces this crumb out of our children's reach ,we are fallen indeed.—l am, otc, F. G. Ewington.