Original Correspondence.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 193, 22 March 1878, Page 6

Original Correspondence.

. Vra^EDTJCATIO*^ BOARD ELECTION. TO THE EDITOR. "SIR, — Education, one of the most imnortant - -^questions of this or of any day, is now eneaeing •"-the public attention, and various are the ideas •a-float. It is evident that imny hay? but vague ■-■conceptions of what "it is to be educated, or how the young hopefuls are to be cultured into -.goodly specimens of "humanity— the lads to be. -not blusteringly, but intelligently manly, and *the lasses not ignorantly, but intelligently -modest, for unless thero be minliness in the men, and modesty in fhe maidens, the culture -"Will have miscarried, and the social life become and fail of good results. *Now we parents^ -or many of us, nre anxious at the present time. ""The great (?) Education Boards are to be formed, ■and surely there is abundant room for believing "that the type of education to be looked for will depend largely on the type of Board that will be -created. Tn reference to any question not much js to be expected from a Board greatly ignorant of the main principle of the matter entrusted to "it, and we speak mildly when we say that preeminently is this applicable to a Board of Education. Such a Board should surely be composed mainly of members whose education enables -them fully to understand what it* is they are dealing with, and whether the steos they arc taking and the means they are adopting will, if " fairly worked, secure its accomplishment. It is not enough that every member of ihat "Board be able to say what a school and a schoolmaster are, but what it is to be educated, and -what appliances are the likeliest to produce that culture to be looked for from the schoolmaster, and which, in probably eighty per cent of the -generation, will fix tbe type of humanity wbich they will exhibit. Where education is scarce, - or the means of obtaining it beyond the people's - power, the three It's are considered a very great -deal, and this doubtless is true. But education ?is not so scarce in Otago, nor the means of reaching it so far beyond the people's power that the three B7s should be made the standard ; nor is a * locality, having in it a Government school, entitled to he contented with the three It's, for the three R's simply mean learned enough to make bread and butter. Now it would be almost a fatality to Tiave our coming: Education Board composed mainly, if not entirely, of bread and butter members, employing largely onlj r bread and butter teachers, and promoting over the length and breadth of the land a bread and "butter standard of education. "No doubt bread ■ and butter are very good, but we believe it a bad thing to limit the school programme to bread and butter ability. Eve any locality will find it ' enoush, or ere its jising generation will have ~ fair play, the school's programme must go beyond bread and butter acquisitions, and in order that this may be so we desire to say to the school committees: See, gentlemen, that you elect an Education Board whose education will enable them to have higher aspirations than bread and "butter; for, good as tbat common I 'ty is for -corporal purposes, there is still, with such a standard, no little risk of losing the intellect proper. Indeed in old Scotland it is not unmincingly mentioned thst school culture proper is taking up a lower level than it did in the "famous old parochial times, when the heritors and the presbytery of the bounds elected the teacher and superintended the teaching. Though -emoluments at their disposal were very limited, they yet never yielded to a bread and butter standard, but bent their influence to put Avithin the reach of every locality the means of a higher •culture — that if a boy hnd tho brains he should have the opportunity to have them educated, and leave his school and schoolmaster, not only having vague notions about brute matter and bread-winning, hut also aspiring ideas about the human and divine natures acquired from classic history and from the classic languages. Such a boy, though himself poor born, was expected to be the father of a great man, which, in many instances, he became. But in those times and in that country they were all educated men who presided over the interests of education. .Now were Sew Zealand to do the same to-day, •to wit, to put educated men, as far as they can be obtained, on the Boards or Committees of education would be vastly tho gainer, -and we parents, aud I am sure the teachers* •would feel greatly mors at ease, and our 'Children's culture be more hopeful. — I am, &c, A Parent. «, TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Onr Education Committees have had ••committed to them, an important trust in that it has been assigned to them to elect tho Education Board. By that Board the whole machinery for •carrying on tho education of the families of Otago has to be determined, and according to the -arrangements they adopt will depend the character of the education that will be given. A moment's consideration will suffice to show that it is not every man that is qualified to discharge the important functions that will necessarily fall to the members of the Board. These fuuetions •demand that the members themselves be Avelleducated men ; men whose merits are in sympathy with the education of our youth, as fully alive to the advantages of a well-instructed "population, men acquainted with and qualified to select whatever may be most suitable in the •different schemes of education presently in vogue ; men who have had something more to do with ■education than to have been the occasional member of an education committee, whose duties have been so limited as scarcely to bring tbem even into contact with what essentially enters into the education of the young. All this has been lost sight of on the part of many of our -Committees, if I may judge from the nominations they have made to the Bo ird. Some of them have nominated parties simply because they are members of their own committees ; •others have been nominated simply because of the place they hold in relation to municipal or •other local matters : another from the part they have played in the arena of politics. I have no ■doubt they are educated men in many respects, ■and have done good service in the different spheres they have moved in, and yet they may he far from being qualified for undertaking the -regulation of a matter that has called forth and strained the utmost energies of the formost minds in. those lands that have made the education of the young a real matter of concern and interest : a fact ibis that points most forcibly to the necessity of selecting at this important crisis in our educational affairs men of education, and men capable of taking an enlightened view of the various mattersthatmnst necessarily "received the attention* of the 'Board." Takefdr instance the actual measure and method of instruction to ,* $)e imparted in our schools— commonly known as ,

the syllabus —how many of these nominated to the Board are aware of what this term implies, or of the effects that have already flowed from the adoption of the system of education unbodied in this term. How many of them could intelligently discuss the various questions which stand related to such a hard and fast mode of instruction as has hitherto been pursued without any regard to the several aptitudes of the pupils in our schools. I mention this merely by way of illustrating somewhat the requirements essential to a member of the "Board of E lucation, aud the matters that will demand their attention. Then, again, there are the inspectors of our schools — men of education, of large experience in the management of school instruction, but men who like others are apt to have their hobbies and their crotchets. Ihe/ will be necessarily subject to the Board. But unless the members of the Board are their peers, at least in education, and capable of forming a judgment equally with them on matters relating to school instruction, they must necessarily become the masters of the Board and its dictators, and a centralism in education be estallished of the very worst hind, nor could be othei wis 1 , if men of inferior intelligence and inferior education are to be the men with whom our school inspectors are to deal If our inspectors are rightly to be what their office implies, they must be associated with men whom they can respect, whose opinions they can regard as deserving of consideration and weight, and whose decisions they can on this account feel themselves warranted to put into execution. Did your space allow, I could further illustrate the necessity that lies upon the committees of electing light men to the Board. Enough 1 think 1 have said to induce the delegates that are to assemble from ihe Clutha district on the 23rd inst. to recommend to their several committees a nine tbat will reflect credit on themselves, and be such as will fully warrant the hope that if anA 7 of them become members of the Board the)* will prove the right men in the right place.— l am, &c, A Emend of Education.