EDUCATION IN MUSEUM

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27213, 3 December 1953, Page 12

EDUCATION IN MUSEUM

COST OF SERVICE IN CHRISTCHURCH

RELIEF FOR RATEPAYERS SUGGESTED New Zealand led the way for the world in museum education, said Mr H. W. Beaumont, education officer of the Canterbury Museum, speaking to the annual meeting of the Association of Friends of the Museum. In recognition of this some of the cost of maintaining the service should be taken from the ratepayer and given to the taxpayer, he said. During the year 30,000 children received instruction at the musuem, and there were applications for twice that number. . If the museum was to cater for the number of children available twice the present space would be needed in the building, said Mr Beaumont. A teaching staff of at least 20 (four permanent teachers and 16 students) and room for them to work was needed. Sixty thousand children going through the museum each year meant 200 each day of the school year. There would, therefore, need to be space for 200 satchels to be kept—room for 200 wet coats to be hung. The museum had also become the “fairy godmother of Christchurch schools.” he said. It was the only educational edifice in the city which gave so much for nothing. “Surely it is time that some of the cost was removed from the ratepayers and put upon the taxpayers.” he said. The museum gave its rooms free cf rent, lighting free of charge, heating without cost, its exhibits without charge. The removal of some of the burden from the ratepayers of Christchurch would not make much difference to the pockets of citizens, but “in that way New Zealand will be giving recognition to an educational system any nation would have been proud to have pioneered.”