RAVENSBOURNE SCHOOL MATTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 6759, 26 November 1884, Page 4

RAVENSBOURNE SCHOOL MATTERS.

TO THI EDITOR. Sib,— There are some bucking horses that will allow you to get on their back, and just as you have begun to think, well, 1 can say I have sat upon him, he gives one buck and you are over his head. Such is the case with the Education Board and their dispute with the Ravensbourne School Committee, They have all along tried to sit on the Committee, but the Committee, unfortunately for the Board, refuse to be sat upon. Only look at the miserable exhibition last week. On Thursday the Board attempted to sit on the Committee, and were so sure of -ucceeding that on Friday one of them was anxiously inquiring if they were even still alive; but on Saturday the Committee gave one buck and the weak-kneed weaklings were over their heads, sprawling in the mire of pity, contempt, ridicule, and scorn. When the next attempt is made to amend the Education Act, it is to be hoped, in the interests of the Otago Education Board, there will be a clause inserted compelling committees to do only as the Board allow ihem, and making it punishable for them to even dare to think for themselves, far loss to say what they think. 1 would oven go further. I you'd insist on the Government sending Home to the Tower of London and getting designs, patterns, cto,, of the different instruments of torture used under the Inquisition, so that the Board might, under the persuasive influence of these friends of liberty and independence, compel a ready acquiescence with their very smallest wish, and then would follow the millennium, when the lion and lamb would lie down together, only the thumbscrews, etc,, would always be ready at hand to adorn the peaceful scene. So that there may be no time lost, 1 hereby offer to head a subscription list with one pound, to enable the Board to get them at onoe, I weary so much for the time when Committees will be put down who would dare to complain, because, forsooth, the Board merely appointed one of its number to act as chairman on a committee of inouiry, to inquire into its own actions. What presumption t Then wouldn’t Mr M'Kenzie have been a lot the better of a little of the thumbscrew on Thursday ? And would he not have got it ? What right had ho to tell in the House what every member of the Board knows already ? I think I almost see each member if the " ring ” as he goes up to him, sitting m the stocks, and with a grin (only to be seen when one sees the Red Indian applying ihe scalping knife to his fallen foe) give the screw another turn, then count the drops of cold sweat pouring over Mr Mackenzie’s brow, then grin the grin of delight as he thinks of the anguish which is being endured, simply because Mr Mackenzie was fool .enough to think and speak the trnth. I Why, sir, it must have been a scene worth remembering to those who on Thursday witnessed the Board meeting, as each member of the seared phalanx, led on by their chairman, attacked Mr Mackenzie, and with bated breath, and.the fye

flashing from their eyes, belched forth their abase, because they knew they were seven to two at most. Then it would have been worth the value of a “prince’s ransom” to have bad the chance of studying Mr Ramsay when he aasumedthe r6le of injured innocence, and, in reply to Mr M'Kenzie’s motion, “ asked if the mover expected any member of the Board to second that, after the manner in which the Committee had behaved to the Board.” I have no doubt after this Mr Elder went away declaring: “Well, I always thought the Board were in the wrong until I saw Mr Ramsay as he asked this question; but now I am convinced we are in the right. When we consider that all this took place in the Education Board of Otago, “ free, gratis, and for nothing,” I can only lift up my hands and exclaim with Dominie Samson—

Pbodigiods,

Dunedin, November 24. P.S.—I have no doubt the Board will at once agree to your proposal, and have an inquiry into the truth of the statements made by Mr M'Kenzie in the House. Of course they will follow their usual practice when inquiry is to bo made into the action of the Board, namely, send him the ordinary monthly notice of the meeting of the Board, but no notice of the inquiry. On arriving be will find three members sitting—probably the chairman and Messrs Elder and Begg, They will inform him there is to be an inquiry into his statements; and should he refuse, on the ground that he will not go into it with them acting as judges, jury, accused, and witnesses, then Thursday’s proceedings will be put in the shade; and were it not that, as usual, it will bo all done in secret I would have to sign myself “More Prodigious Still.”