FREE EDUCATION. TO THE BDITOR OF THE EVENING POST.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 126, 26 November 1881, Page 3

FREE EDUCATION. TO THE BDITOR OF THE EVENING POST.

Sib — I have been patiently waiting for some one with an abler pen or voice than mine to rise up in indignation and protest against the miserable cry that is being raised to limit free education to the fourth standard. Oh ! people of New Zealand, is it possible that, having planted in your midst this noble monument of your better selves, you are going to allow a selfish, narrow, political party to make this one of their election ories ? Consider the working classes in the Old Country were for 50 years fighting for what you have, in your superior wisdom and intelligence, gained so early in your history ; and I would warn you there are those seeking your suffrages who would seek to pull down this grand system, that will enable the sons of the poor to come forth and ask from their own people that they may send them into the Councils of the nation, to make for them just, honest, and equitable lawa. Now let us consider what your candidates say to you. Mr. Lavin, at the Athenajum, in reply to the question, said, "I am not favourable to free education after the fourth standard, but I am in favour of compulsory education." Now, take the case as at present and consider it. A boy must remain at school till he is thirteen years old ; he is able to pass the fourth standard when he is nine or ton years of age, and so because you have a child competent to do this the law is to be so mads as to keep this child down, while another may stay on till, say, thirteen years of age and then not pass. I ask, Is this what you wantP But I feel convinced the people of Wellington cannot mean to part so easily with the advantages they hay». As a comparatively recent comer to New Zealand, one thing has impressed me m»at deeply, and convinces me of the soundness andi future greatness of this colony — I hay» found education and religion bo firmly aid prosperously implanted in bo small a community. Allow me to suggest that if any limit to eduoational advantages may be thought desirable, would it not be better to make ago, and not the standard, that limit f I have it on good authority that as at present constituted the saving effeoted by a limit to the fourth standard of free education would not exceed .£12,000 a year for the entire colony— a little more than you pay the ornaments iv your Upper House. I am, &0., 21st November. J.B.G.

" Farewell " is the title of a poem sent in from Ohio yesterday. It is a good thing that the gifted authoress said good-bye to the little gem. for she will never see it again. — Chicago Tribune. {For further news see J»fljr« 4.