The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3033, 16 March 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1881.

Following up our remarks of yesterday, we fi"d that an American correspondent of the Otago Witness eaye: —I agree with the Daily Times that you are paying too much for education in New Zealand, and by this I mean that the education fund does not come from the right source. In this country, more especially in the new states and territories, Congress eeta apart public land in each township for school purposes. In addition, a fixed percentage of the State tax is appropriated by law to common schools ; and with us, alao, a poll tax is levied which goes exclusively to their maintenance. By this moans a very large sum is raised, and I may say, on the whole, is judiciously expended. But our administration does not cost anything like so much as yours does. Our local school directors are unpaid, the State Board of Education costs something, but it is a mere bagatelle compared to the expense of your Education Department. An American writer, who recently visited the Australian colonies, made a very suggestive and admirable remark in a letter from Melbourne the other day, to the effect that the colonies had volnntarily burdened themselves with the most cumbrous, inefficient, and costly system of government in the world, in their slavish imitation of the British Imperial system. He was quite right; and your Education Department, like that of FTew South Wales, Victoria, &c, is a case in point. As General Sherman remarked the other day of the United States army, when discussing the proposal to create for Gtneial Grant the rank of Captain-general, " The service is already overburdened with too much rank for uur small army" ; and I tbink your educational system is greatly overburdened v.itb " too much rank." Very efficient, experienced, and zealous officers no doubt, but as unnecessary in the main as a filth wheel to a coacb. Simplicity of management would go far to perfect and cheapen jour educational system ; and then there could be a capitation tax of ten shillings a year levied for common school purposes. There need be no difficulty io. enforcing it, and no one would feel it as a burden. This would relieve the Treasury, and give the masses a direct interest in the working of the school system. This country is taking a new departure on the education question. The illiteracy of the South, and the inability of that section to overtake the requirements of the population, white and colored, having been forciby presented to Congress by the Preeident, at his suggestion a bill was introduced, and has now passed the Senate, appropriating a portion of the proceeds of the public land sales for the building of schoolhouses, and creating an educational system for Dixie's land. This measure will revolutionise society in the Soutb. In a few years sectional difference will disappear, and North and South will be, heart and soul, one people. After all, this is a " great country," but, great as it is, we could never tolerate the extravagant waste of your top-heavy Education bureau. Throw the responsibility more upon the people and make education less of a department of the Government, and you will lay the foundation for an intelligent, efficient, and inexpensive system of local self-government, such as we have in America. What you want above everything is to raise a generation of

men and women who can manage their iociii institutions without subsidies, and wlio do not know the .'uste of Government