BOARD OF EDUCATION.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 6905, 10 November 1887, Page 6

BOARD OF EDUCATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir,—ln a mixed English and Latin sentence —very much mixed, in more senses than one — your correspondent " Fair Play " charges mc with inaccuracy, and then proceeds to give us a specimen of his own accuracy.

As I am only a clodhopper, I need not ■waste time in defending myself, but will expose the inaccuracy of "Fair Play's" assertions. He tells us that "In the first place, Professor Haslam is pledged by his educational antecedents to support the country schools, and in the second place the Board of Education has no control whatever over the high schools or colleges." The only public record connected with Professor Haslam and the Board of Education, is rather in the other direction, and as to the Board of Education, it has a great deal to do with our high schools and colleges, both directly and indirectly. This Professor Haslam must have known and felt when the Board refused to allow high school scholars to compete with primary schools for the Board s scholarships, when it decides upon how much it will spend upon the high schools for its pupil teachers, and upon the remuneration it will put in the way of the high school professors, to say nothing of the prominent part which the law requires the Board to take in the election of high school governors. Then we are told that Professor Haslam knows a great deal about " the requirements of the educational profession." Just so; lam only afraid that he will know too much about that part of the business. The requirements of the profession and the welfare of our I chilldren may very possibly be directly at variance with each other; and it is the

children, not the profession, whose interests the Committees ought to protect. Then we are told that " there is no possibility of any such neglect of country interests as ' Clodhopper' suggests." Here again, how little " Fair Play " can know of what he is writing about. Why, that is just the danger that does crop up in every public body in New Zealand,. from the House of Representatives to the parish vestry. Take care of the country districts and the cities will always be sure to take care of themselves, except when they are too selfish to see what their true interest is. What a curious idea your correspondent must have of the country when he writes of it as a place of privation and exile, to which teachers will not go except for higher pay than they accept in town. And what monsters of injustice the Board must be to only give them about onequarter as much.

Lastly, we are told that " the election should be decided on the ground of general fitness only, and that there Professor | Haslam's claims are admittedly superior." j The first assertion is quite true, the second is quite untrue. "Who admits the supe- [ riority of the Professor's claims ? Is Pro- i fessor Haalam greater than Performer \ Wright? Is the man who is now propos- i ing to put on his armour greater than the , hero of a thousand fights ? Is an i nnelected and untried man to be pre-; ferred to a man who has filled; almost every position in the gift of : the Canterbury electors, and who has filled each office with justice, zeal and ability? Is the man who now proposes to begin public work superior to the man who gave the country districts their first potential voice on the Lyttelton Harbor Board, who gave Ashburton its water races, and who gave Major Atkinson the nrstproof he ever had that a Member of the House could be able, disinterested, and independent? I do nDt know Professor Haalam. He may yet prove a wonderful man, but for public work I instinctively f prefer a performer to a professor.—Yours, &C. , COODHOPPKB.