STATE SCHOOL TEACHERS AND THE PRESENT CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 92, 12 January 1921, Page 5

STATE SCHOOL TEACHERS AND THE PRESENT CRISIS

Sir, — _ . “How empi’y learning and how vain is art, ’ But as it mends the life and guides the heart." The New Zealand Educational Institute has met and deliberated, and has won for itself the negative praise that' it has not turned itself into a trades union. Year after year this institution meets and deliberates, and makes no worthy contribution to the tremendous subject of education in its fullness of meaning. Instead of discussing education, the subject that fills the horizon of ills members is the social and material betterment of the teachers. Parliament has strained the financial resources of the country to find better salaries for our State school teachers, and.the members of the Educational Institute met the other day, enjoying a freedom from anxiety about their material support enjoyed by only a few others in the land, and it is, to be regretted that that freedom did not bring with it gratitude and a deeper sense of responsibility. The “chief end” of our educational system is not the material betterment of tlhe teachers, but the mental, physical, and moral well-being of the children of to-day, who will be the citizens of to-morrow. The institute, in its recent meetings, might have paused to take stock of the contribution it was making from year to year to the mental and moral worth of the nation. Had iv paused to do so the trades union proposal and the petty attacks on private schools would have been brushed aside as unworihy of consideration by a body of men. and women who called themselves the New Zealand' Educational Institute. Church courtls often sadly misrepresent the piety and Christianity of the Church, and it is quite possible that discussions and remits and resolutions of ihe institute do not' represent the moral ideals in education of the majority of the State school teachers of our Dominion

New .Zealand is in the midst of a moral crisis, and the men and women who have special responsibilities with regard to the mental aud moral condition of the land seem blind to the situation. For forty years and more our free, secular, and compulsory system of education has been in operation, and the parents aud the young men and young women of to-day are the products of She system, and yet our mental condition is such as to awake grave concern in the mind, of every ■ thoughtful patriot. Juvenile crime is increasing. Parents have lost -control of their children, and conductors of orphanages are besieged by parents who wish to be relieved of their lawless children. The world of industry is in a state of chaotic war. Nero fiddled when Rome was burning, and the Educational Institute repeated this Jragic performance by discussing inanities about their material betterment in New Zealand's industrial and moral crisis.

Our educational system hicks a moral spinal column, and the institute reflects this weakness. Reform is needed, or wo shall perish. In 1886 moral reform was urged upon the New Zealand Government by an expert whose advice the Government sought. I have this State paper before me as I write. This expert urged “That morals and manners be obligatory in all standards, and that pupils be specially impressed with the importance of honour and truthfulness in word and act, justice, cheerful obedience to parents and law, manliness and womanliness, benevolence, resolution, industry, perseverance, punctuality, good manners' and language, cleanliness and neatness; that dishonourable dealing, falsehood, deceit, trickery, and unfairness. disobedience, baseness, vacillation, idleness, and cruel heartedness lead to disaster; and that sin is a logical sequence of false principles.” IVe have found a prison in the fallacy that imparting knowledge was education, and our emancipation lies in realising that education without goodness is a delusion and a sham. —I am, etc., R.W. Wellington, January 8, 1920. ASCENTS OF TAPUAENUKU Sir.—l have read in your paper with considerable interest this morning Mr. G. S. 51’Rae’s letter on the subject of the various ascents that (have been made of Mount Tapuaenuku. May I suggest that while his communication contains something that is new, it leaves out all reference to what I believe was

the the first and certainly the most sensational attempt made to ascend that mountain, viz., the climb of Lieut.-Gov-ernor Eyre and his Alaori guides in November, 1849. Lieut.-Governor Eyre—who had nlready achieved sonic distinction as an explorer in Australia —while in charge of the province of New Munster, comprising Wellington and the southern districts of New Zealand, conceived the idea of making an' overland journey through the mountainous country of the South Island, to the newly-founded settlement at Canterbury'. On tho way he was attracted by the prospects of climbing Mount Tapuaenuku and his experience was anything but a pleasant one. The adventure is thus described in Hamilton Hume’s “Life of Governor Eyre, written mainly to justify his conduct when later he was appointed Governor of Jamaica: “He found the ascent exceedingly difficult and dangerous, but succeeded in reaching the summit on the second day just as night was closing in. Th© wind was blowing a fierce gale, the snow was drifting, and there was every appearance of a storm. They had therefore barely time to take a hurried glance at the landscape around and make the best of their way downward to seek for some place to pass the night. They had not proceeded far in a zigzag descent across n steep incline plane of frozen snow, before one of the Afaoris (Wiremu Hoeta) slipped,and was hurried along downwards with fearful rapidity for upwards of fifteen hundred feet, striking against and bounding over ledges of rock which intersected and projected across the frozen snow at intervals of tiro to three hundred feet. Mr. Eyre, himself, had a terribly narrow escape at one moment. His foot slipped, and but for his presence of mind in striking an iron-shod pole he had with him into the snow, and lowering his hands Avithout a niomentfs hesitation to the base, he would have been dashed to pieces likewise. As it was, he managed to cling on for a few moments and eventually regained his feet. It was impossible to proceed further, as night had closed in, and they were therefore obliged to lie down where they were upon a little ledge of rock, which just kept them from following their unfortunate companion. It was so narrow that with outstretched arms Mr. Eyre could ibuch the brink. Here they passed the night in a state of bodily and mental torture that no words can adequately describe. At earliest! dawn they again commenced, their descent cautiously, and at last reached a point from which they could see the body of their unfortunate fellowtraveller, though they could not possibly reach it. The body had been projected under a huge ledge of frozen snow overhanging a small stream at the bottom of a fearful ravine. The poor fellow was evidently quite dead. Indeed, he must have been stunned and killed long before he reached his last resting-place by the continual striking against the ledges of rock in his descent 1 , from each of .which a track of blood stained the frozen enow, marking his course. Finding that they could not even have the melancholy satisfaction of recovering the body of their unfortunate fellow-traveller they made the best of their way down the mountain, and as the Alaoris were utterly disheartened, Mr. Eyre ivas reluctantly compelled to give up his projected trip across country to the Canterbury settlement:. Of the mountain itself, Lieutenant-Gov-ernor Eyre says, in a letter which he wrote from Government House at Wellington after his return, “There is little vegetation on the hills but mpsses, lichens, and some coarse grasses, besides prickly plants, of which the taramea is the chief, but the singular fact was that on so steep and high a hill, where nothing but moss and lichens grow, were t'llie charred remains of large totara trees, evidently, showing that the ground had once been low and covered with forest, and that it has been pushed up within a comparatively recent geological period.” The presence of these charred totara logs on the higher hills in i(he Awatero and country south of it has often been affirmed io me by men who have mustered sheep over that district in the early days, but so far I have not yet heard propounded a theory illiat could be unreservedly accepted for their appearance in so unexpected a position.—l am, etc., T. LINDSAY BUICK.