EDUCATION AND ITS APOSTLES

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 67, 19 March 1918, Page 4

EDUCATION AND ITS APOSTLES

THE MINISTER AND HIS CRITICS 10 TUB EDITOR. ■ Sir, —One reads with interest tho Ministerial utterances reported in your issue of Thursday last. One .finds therein no panegyric on "one of the finest education systems in the world," no bold and aggressive apologetics, but an admission of impotence. Even a ' trivial reform, popular and above all cheap, such as uniform "school books, cannot be compassed. The futility, then, 'of expecting a really constructive policy in education from one so placed is pathetically apparent. It becomes obvious therefore, even to the most confiding, that the writing of mem.ora.nda (vide that of June, 1916) cuts no ice; that their publication for the bland approval of fellow -politicians leaves "the greatest of reconstructive agencies" in the same parlous case as it found it in.

All that can be clearly seen is that no man should become Minister of Education unle66 for three years he is prepared to discourse grandiosely and accomplish nothing. The position, a purely subsidiary one in our politics, can only be filled by any one prepared to act as if "a stated policy he deems ridiculous were seriously.'defeasible." (Vide 1&16 report.)

Two years ago (vide mem. 30/6/16) country schools were described as "small, ineffective schools generally under untrained, uncertincated teachers." Yesterday, however, it appears that the high quality of the work herein was one matter at least of Ministerial congratulation. Likewise, at a time when overcrowding, under-spacing, and .' understaffing are worse than ever, the Minister, instead of condemning even more roundly than he did two years ago these sinister evils, embarks on a policy, if not of defiance, at least of excuses. He came into office three years ago with his hands tied, and has apparently been quite unable within that time to free them. Everyone should, therefore, feel sincerely sorry for him. One might, did not the claim of the rising generation to an ideal rather than a deleterious school environment, rise paramount over purely personal claims to one's commiseration. The great pleasure, therefore, it gives n Minister' of the Dominion to be present at the opening of insignificant additions to an insignificant suburban school will not be shared by aroused and alert educationists. They will rather incline to ask why the Minister, busy with a "fiery and soulful" campaign lor an entire £1,000,000 a year ■ for education, does not leave such negligible details to his subordinate officials. But perhaps the Minister is suffering from hallucination. Two years ago he deplored practically all the evils the writer has indicated in a series of letters printed in those columns. Yet last year's report— a piece of specious window-dressing : fag ends of ribbon and lace in place of good, honest broadcloth—Biimmed up the general progress of education as very satisfactory. The Minister finally avers that the citizens of this country do not begrudge money for education. That is true, though many people who dote on their children who waste half-crowns »on Christmas trash for " the . stockings " take exception to a charge of 3s for a decent history reader. Still, were even such parents as these got to see that the child's welfare, happiness, usefulness, and success in life depended quite twothirds on an adequate school training, they would pay without demur. It is the controllers of our finance reluctant to accept the drudgery and onus of imposing fresh taxation who restrict an influential Education Minister's expenditure to a point where he becomes a cipher.

And herein lies the reason why a man is wanted free of the belittling associations of Seddonian politics with a public mandate to receive and to spend, on behalf of our' children, a doubled education vote; a man unallied to any party; a man, too, at such a' juncture as this expertly capable of giving direction to the reforms so urgently needed. Lastly, sir, is there room for an appeal to those of ywr readers who are, like the writer, parents? May-ft be believed that you parents place the good 1 hap of ypur youngsters above any other consideration; that your most present and potent desire in life is to see them reach that point of fully developed faculty, mental, moral, and physical, where.they are a source of good to the community and of genuine pride to their.begetters. If so, how much longer ar« you going to continue to allow your children to be crowded into dirty, dingy classrooms, in unhealthy schools, with cramped playgrounds? How long are you going to be content to place them year after year under the charge sof teachers- ill-fitted, ill-trained, ill educated, who, incapable of teaching ono, are' asked 1 to instruct 40, 50, 60 or 80? Will not some of that upwelling of philoprogenitive sentiment that accompanies your v offspring on his fleet career in the 100 yards under 10 at the school picnic, will it not be better diverted to more serious considerations? Will hot the parents of Wadestown rededicate, as a gao] the old school, which is. still retained in use and' crowded with unfortunate youngsters? Cannot the residents of Te Ai'o see that Mount Cook Boys is a worse blot on the civic landscape than ever was Mount Cook Prison? If so, will they combine to do what no other organisation of teachers, politicians, commercial men, or farmers has ever yet attempted— %p give hot our products, our stock, our manufactures, a fair chance of being first quality—but to give our children, our chief, oiir only national asset, an opportunity of fully expanding the divine endowment of faculty with which each has been created!

If not, the writer has no hesitation in saying that this nation is on the sure road to ruin. Not soaring prices for butter, not full race trains, not sheep rump-deep in jpass unable to carry their wool, not a million farmers in a million motor-cars of a single season's buying, not all the material prosperity will avert the evil day. A generation to come (has it come? Vide Wellington North), incapable of large thought, of disciplined organised high principled effort, with no culture beyond the pictures, with no character beyond the animal wants and their animal gratification, will destroy the fair promise of what we all hoped twenty yeSrs ago should prove a paragon of democracies. . For of democracy there are but two corner stones—far-seeing intelligence and an unfailing sense of responsibility. For any commonwealth that is reared without these foundations yawns the chasm of anarchy that has engulfed Russia. Cannot, by way of conclusion, an appeal be made to New Zealand to follow the lead of the Home Country? Harassed by war difficulties and dangers unfeit here, she is making a strenuous effort to found surely and ambitiously the future of the State on a reformed school system. With abundant means and material at hand to do likewise, it will be to our lasting disgrace as a people if we fail to attempt it.—l am, etc., F. L. COMBS. Masterton, 9th March.