WHO SHOULD PAY?

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 47, 23 February 1917, Page 2

WHO SHOULD PAY?

■-■ II) THE EDITOR. *' Sir,—As 'a. teacher of wide experi-ence,-'Eiud ex-head mistress in the Old Country, I' would: like to support'thosrv parents who arc objecting to pay for their children's school books, etc.

So long as the present'rule, holds good, education in Now Zealand .is certainly not "free.'' The.present system, which requires parents to pay for-nearly everything used by their children at ■. school, ''is" grossly unfair, and in the 1 present time of stress may be a positive hardship to those-who have several children attending school.

The State cries out about the declining birth-rate, but one wonders sometimes if the parents of large families receive the encouragement and help which might'bc given them, and which, they might reasonably expect. Those parents who are raising- up it-he future men and women of the-Empire—chips of tho " Anzac " -block—surely deserve consideration at the hands of the, State. In England the State bears .the whole «>sfc of educating , her children, the parents not being required to pay for even a lead pencil. (Slates are practically lian-. ished as insanitary.) Each child ie provided with a complete educational outfit. Each separate article bears his or her. name, and' for health reasons is used by no other child. "As is the child, so is the nation." New Zealand's children deserve the, best at the hands of New Zealand's Government, and their parents should no longer be allowed to be under the irksome and unnecessary obligation of paying for 1 what is freely given as a: just clue to our children in the Mother Country.— I am, etc., , TEACHER, 21st February.