The Press. WEDNESDAY, JULY 14. 1886.

Press, Volume XLIII, Issue 6492, 14 July 1886, Page 4

The Press. WEDNESDAY, JULY 14. 1886.

When a newspaper vendor, on a very large scale it is true, became a First Lord of the Admiralty there -was little or up comment on the event. The question of whether a Minister of the Crown in England should or should not hare a special knowledge of the particular department he was called upon to administer had previously been well discussed, and the balance of opinion was in favour of the somewhat paradoxical statement that special knowledge was rather a drawback. An exadmiral would make a poor "First Lord. A gentleman like Mr. Gobches might have "no notion of the motion of the ocean," but he made a first-rate Minister; Mr. W. H. Smith's special knowledge of naval affairs was nil, yet he acquitted himself welL Business tact and administrative abiHtyare the virtues wanted. Special knowledge is at a discount. A Minister is charged . with carrying out certain legislative enactments relating to his department; and he may do this work all the better for not having the bias of special knowledge, which in many cases may be not inaptly designated fads. Possessed of these fads, a Minister of the Crown is placed in a position in which he may do much harm. Let an old General be supreme at the War Office, aad his presence there would assuredly hamper a General on the field. The fact is, the Service at Home would not stand a specialist at the head of any of the great national establishments.

We Hare asked the question, should, a Minister of the Crown hare special knowledge of nis department in order to institute a. contrast between what obtains at Home and our colonial practice, which is, Would an ex-school-master make a good Minister of Education ? Whatever the general public may think of the matter, it is plain enough that in the allocation of port* folios in a new Cabinet ex-school-masters are considered to bare got the Education Department to administer. They at least think themselves fully qualified. Moreover, their colleagues must in most casei think softoo,*or else we would not find so many of our colonial Cabinet Ministers men who are supposed to have some technical acquaintance with their departments. At present, both in Victoria and Hew Zealand, we have two noteworthy instances of ex-schoolmasters being Ministers of Education—Professor Pjeabsoit and Sir R. Stout. It remain? to be seen in the former instance whether the Victorian Minister has forgotten his drastic and almost revolutionary education report of ten years ago: as for the latter we have now had sufficient experience to enable us to pronounce a verdict Unlike the Victorian Acts dealing with education, our system recognises in a marked degree the principle of local control. Wben the Education Act passed through the Legislature some in one respect and others in another tried to strip it of its local character. If they had got their way, whether in the appointment or control of inspectors, the Mhmter of Education would not now be as he is really and truly, as far as all real administrative power ia concerned, a simple figure head. But we have the Act as it is, -and to a man of tie auiooratio and power-grasping disposition of' Sir B. Stout it most be specially annoying that he cannot do more than he has done. As it is, he has gone quite to

tbe length of hie tether, if not beyond it in some cases, for instance in his famous communication to the Otago University Council. According to the Act the Minister has to do with certain Orders in Council affecting standards, with the examination of teachers, with statistics, and provid- : ing money for the various Boards. These are the chief functions he emjoys under the Act. This is not much power, but what the Minister could do he has done. Certain changes have been made in the standards which are of questionable value; tbe office of Inspector-General has either been abolished or amalgamated with tbe Secretaryship ; secondary schools have been communicated with to acquaint them that tbeir curricula are calculated to produce clerks only, and the Otago University Council has, as we have already remarked, received some fatherly and patronising advice. With tbe Act as it is, Sir E. Stout has contrived to do a good deal, some of which has been good, but a good deal indifferent; what, would he not have done if he had bad more power? In one of bis characteristic speeches on this subject, if we remember correctly, be made tbe somewhat unwise remark that if the inspectors did not fall in witb bis views, then so mucb the worse for the inspectors, as be was determined to carry bis views. He has carried out some of these ideas, and, as we have said, some of them appear to be of questionable value, and, whether valuable or not, time alone can tell. In all this Sir E. Stout has been driving. This is the rock ahead I which the Premier ehould shun. His conduct is a genuine outcome of his ; character. There is a kind of intel- ' lectual habit which may be styled revolutionary. Tbe individual who suffers from this weakness ;'e prone to underrate tbe accumulated experience and wisdom of the past ages as embodied in tbe institutions, beliefs, and practices of tbe present. The origin of tbe malady is undoubtedly, in tbe first place, ignorance of what can be said In favour of what exists. Discontent is tbe concomitant of thur mental babit. Change is desired at first as a supposed remedy. At last it is desired for tbe sake of change. New ideas are readily assimilated. live sufferer is ueually tbe first to apprehend a new idea and promulgate it. Hβ is too impressionable. If our Education Act had been different, if it bad given tbe control of tbe inspectorate to the Minister, tbe regulation of scholarships, and the training of teachers, we doubt not that Sir B. Stout would have signalised bis period of power by many changes and innovations. With such a Minister tbe Act is better as it is. The question we have raised is one tbat has hitherto received but little attention on this side the globe. On the whole we incline to the opinion that the home practice is preferable to our own. "We are of course, well aware that at first sight our mode appears the better one, but, on investigation of caee after case, it will be found, we doubt not, that tbe wisest and safest course is to have over departments men of business tact and great administrative ability, whi&h we take means this—such a knowledge of character that as far as officials go, tbe right man shall be in the right place. Tbe carrying out of fads or ideas by any Minister is specially to be deprecated, for work of that claps is as likely as not to be undone by the next specialist that gets into office. '