FREE PLACES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 146, 17 December 1913, Page 10

FREE PLACES

I TO TUB EDITOR. ' Sir,—The position with regard to this vexed question'is so unsatisfactory, and the action of tho authorities so pusillanimous and dilatory that I crave your indulgence to allow me to make some remarks upon the matter. Take the discussion upon. Mr. Hogg's motion as reported by you in to-night'B Post. Well may Mr. Moss ask for more information, for the ignorance of members as displayed during the discussion was lamentable The difficulty existed last year, yet in tho, interval nothing has been done to secure v. remedy, and unless the public kicks and kicks hard, the problem will bo still un- , solved next year this time. "Refer tho matter to the inspectors" is the resort of a weak body. The chairman of the board,' in his capacity of college governor, should know where the shoe pinches, but what has he done ? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except to say that the free-place pupils should go to the Training College or to the Technical School. Why should I, as a taxpayer, not be able to claim my rights to choose for my girls a secondary education proper, which I wish for them, rather than a technical school education, which Ido not want? The crux of tho whole matter ib the fact that tho secondary school authorities are antagonistic to tho free-place 6ystem. At the Girls' College an infant school iB carried on at tho expense of the free-place candidates, and further, >n' at leaet one case which I know, a. girl who had won a free-place was refused as a free-place pupil, but was admitted when her parents consented to pay fees. I gather, too, from Miss M 'Lead's remarks at the Drize^giving ceremony, that it is proposed to givo preference this year to tho youngest free-place winners. Where is .the statutory right for this action? Are tho secondary school authorities a law unto themselves ? It would appear so. A free-place winner has a statutory right to free eduaation up to the age of seventeen, yearn. If a choice has to bo made until such time as the Government provides sufficient accommodation for allcomers, then the best qualified should bo choeen, irrespective of age, provided they can complete their two-years' course ,by the time they arrive at the age of seventeen. Some of the most successful students , at, tHe colleges are girls and boys who won their free places after reaching fourteen years, and for a sufficient reason. They are better ablo to battle with the enormous task represented by homework, the amount of which is beyond all reason, even for maturor pupils, and a positive danger to girls and boys_ of twelve or thirteen. In regard to this aspect of thß question I shall bo told that if girls or boys do not enter the colleges Until they are fifteen, say, they cannot completo their four years' course before they arrive at matriculation age. 'But when it is remembered that only a very small 1 percentage of the students go on to matriculation, this object is worth ?ery little. Wo parents are quite tired of protesting. We want ,our rights in this matter, from tho Government, from the College Governors, and from tho Education Board.,—l am, etc., A PARENT. 12th Deoember, 1913.