DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

Evening Star, Issue 11318, 13 August 1900, Page 1

DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

At the Foresters' Hall, Port Chalmers, on Friday night, the Rev. P. B. Fraser delivered an address in which he replied to his opponents' speeches on the question of district high schools. The mayor (Mr De Mau's) presided. Mr Fraser remarked in opening that the chairman of the Board (Mr Harraway) alleged that the Board had been acting in perfect, good faith in this matter, their sole desire being to plant district, high schools all over the education district; that the whole object of the Board in raising the fees and in tackling this question was to enable, them to establish district high schools at, Tapanui, Naseby, Clyde, and Kaitangata. He (Mr Fraser) could only describe this as a policy of imposture, since at the Board's January meeting Mr John MacGregor had attacked these on the side of their curriculum, while another section of the Board had attacked them on the side of their cost. It was significant now that the Board had entirely dropped the attack on the schools on the score of their not fulfilling their functions : it was merely a question of cost, and they were most anxious to extend them everywhere. They professed to have' no money to run four schools, and had disruted Port Chalmers on fha.t account: now. they were anxious to run ten of these schools. The fact was, so far as any intention of the Board ever was made visible, that they appeared to have little real intention of doing anything, even for Tapanui, much less for; anv other part of the province. Mr Sim had said that but for the present agitation Tapanui would have had its high school: but the facts,showed that Tapanui, had little to thank either Mr Sim or his friends for, since they were the obstructionists. He, for one. would make no attempt to establish a district high school at Tapanui with a, £5 entrance fee, such as Mr Sim and his friends were seeking to. impose. Mr .Harraway was now burning to dot, down district' high schools everywhere, though he had, ever since' he went on the Board, followed a skinflint policy with respect to the country. He (Mr Fraserl would give another conclusive proof that the present professions in favor of district high schools were an afterthought, the endeavor being to lead the country on a false scent. He held in his hand the correspondence of the Board with the Minister, asking him to raise the fees for the high schools. Now, if at the beginning, as now alleged by Mr Harraway, the Jioard meant to establish schools all over the province, would they not have said so to the Minister? It would have been their strongest argument. In the first letter, sent to the Minister in March last, the sole reason given was to render the cost of the existing schools less burdensome. Not one word about Tapanui or anywhere else. Again, in the letter of the secretary on May 21j not one word was said about the desire to establish schools elsewhere. It was therefore purely an act of retrenchment. He did not blame the Board for retrenchment; but there must be retrenchment all round. Though the attendance at the schools had fallen by thousands and the Board's revenue by thousands in the past few years, not one penny of retrenchment had overtaken the official departments of the Board. All educational advantages were confined to Dunedin and Oamaru. for the secondary education of which places the State puid* something like £5,000. while for the whole provincial district—if he were to include the value of scholarships held by country children—the State did not contribute more than one-fifth of that sum for a population twice as great. With regard to the letter -which the -secretary sent to the Minister, Mr Mackenzie endeavored at the June meeting to raise the question of a breach of privilege, and <iave notice for the July meeting that it be -withdrawn, on the ground that it contained inaccuracies and had never obtained the sanction of the Board. In the absence of Mr Mackenzie at the July meeing, Mr Pryde applied for a committee to inquire into his statements regarding high schools. This partisan. Committee were "accordingly set up, and the so-called inquiry and report resulted in the most farcical affair- h3 had ever witnessed. In discussing the report at that meeting Mr Borrie delivered a carefullyprepared and deliberate attack on him. It found, to begin with, that the famous letter of May 21 was correct; that it really did cost in salaries an outlay of over £I,OOO for the four existing schools,. Now. that assertion could only be maintained if the return on which it was founded -were correct." The Committee said that the letter was founded on return No. 1. which was correct when it was written. This last statement, was an evasion. The return was dated January 11, and gave the cost of five schools on the oasis of last year's regulations and payments. Now, what the Minister would want to know before he could judge whether increased fees were necessary was not what the five schools had cost last year, but what under the new regulations the four schools were to cost this year. That was the crux of the whole question. The five schools cost last year, it was alleged by the first return, £1,061. That could be no justification for a statement in May of this year, when the Board had resolved in March that great reductions should be made. The first extraordinary thing he would point out in that report was this: It said the secretary's letter of May 21 was based on return No. 1. Very good. Was it return No. 1 that w.-is sent to the Minister? No, not it; but return No. 2. It was not the return on which the letter was based, but return No. 2 that the chairman sent, as shown in the chairman's letter to the Minister in the papers of July 2. Still a more glaring contradiction was this : The report said —" So far as we can see Mr Pryde has never used return No. 2 for the purpose of bolstering up his statement to the Minister (May 21), as alleged by Mr Fraser." It was just this very return" No. 2 that the chairman did send to the Minister to bolster up that very letter! That Was not only a contradiction, but it was plainly an acknowledgment that return No. 1 could not substantiate the letter based upon it. So the question was now not the correctness of return No. 1. but of return No. 2. He next referred to paragraph 3 of the report, where a reference was made to the statement that the "extra assistant" in Palmerston had cost £llO per annum. He reminded his hearers ' l ---- t the "extra assistant" in all the schools was a lady teacher at £BS per annum. How came the "extra assistant" at Palmerstnn to have £110? The Committee, without one word of explanation, simply asserted that it was correct, but it was plainly incorrect. Hp had in his hand a, memorandum, wherein the secretary informed him that the teacher who got the £llO was not the "extra" lady assistant, but the third male assistant. And he had the statement in the handwriting of tho secretary that the "extra assistant" was a. lady teacher whose name he gave in writing, 'and that the teacher who got £llO "was not the extra assistant." Now, the lady teacher's salary never was anything else than £BS. Therefore it would require- something more than the mere assertion on the part of the Committee 1o say the salary of the " extra, assistant" was correctly stated at £llO. Healing now with* that return No. 2 before the Minister. Takiug tlm salaries of the mistresses, the Board in March last gave notice that these salaries would be reduced from £l4O to £lls or £l2O. according to size, of the school. sairl_ reduction to take effect from June 30. Yet the chairman sent in July a return to the Minister showing 'the salaries as at £l4O. and this the Committee alleged Was ".absolutely correct"! He had already called attention to the fact that the salary of the Palmerston mistress "on Juno 4 was-advertised at £lls. though in a return dated' June 12 and sent to the Minister in July it was represented at £l4O. How did the Committee answer him? They said: " The rate of £lls men-

tiohed by Mr Fraser as having been advertised in the newspaper is not operative till the Ist of August next." Now, what possible inference could be drawn from this than that the £l4O was going on till August ■I?;'. They would be amajied to hear that the reason why the £ll6 was nob operative wasyiot because the £l4O was going on, but be<p4se~ the position was actually filled by a reboving teacher at £BS. The next point in that remarkable, report he would refer to was even more startling the extra cost of the first assistants stood at £2OO each. -Now, in that return No. 2 it was stated tTiat if the schools were ordinary schools at date of that return they should have at Palmerston, Milton, and Balclu'cha. not male teachers at £2OO, but onlv lad-# assistants at £BS. As the first assistant at Baiclutha was getting only £l6O. the difference in cost of these three teachers from what they would cost at ordinary schools was given as no less than £305. Now, he had challenged, in the strongest terms, this calculation of the, secretary, pointing out that two of the schools in question wero entitled as ordinary schools to male assistants at £l6O each. But the secretary replied in the memorandum he addressed to the- chairman, that these two schools—Palnierston and Milton—had fallen, in average attendance below a certain minimum for one quarter, and therefore their staff was entitled to. he reduced. But he (Mr,Fraser) had described this as a "desperate shift" of the secretary's to increase the apparent cost of the schools and bolster up his statement to the Minister. He refen-ed,.besides, to regulation 43, which expressly declared thai it required a fall in attendance for not one* but two. quarters to reduce the staff of. a scliool. How- did the Committee answer hints? They simply said that, he was wrong --that regulation' 43 of 1896 was superseded by'a regulation of February, 1899, and that it required a fall for only one quarter, as .stated by Mr Pryde. They declared expressly that regulation-43 (1896) was superseded by the following:—-"All salaries shall bccalculated on the average attendance for the previous quarter. Adopted 16th February, 1899.*' Now, every teacher in the Board's service knew it to be untrue that the Board acted in that way. It was alleged, that just as a teacher lost a few pounds of saiary by a. fall in the average '•attendance of his scliool for the previous quarter, so in the same manner a first assistant at £2OO or at £l6O was liable to be dismissed and be replaced by a female assistant at £Bs—liable to be dismissed on a. day's notice for a fall of two of an average. It implied that a teacher might hold his position on June 30, but on discovery, when the quarter's average was made up, that his school was down two of an average—as Milton was—out he. should go on July 1, and his place bo taken by a female at £BS. Kvery teacher knew that this feat, performed by the secretary on this' occasion, and approved.by the Committee as. correct, was never once done, and never could be done, by the Board. Not ouly did it take'two quarters to reduce the staff, but" there followed three months' notice to the teacher, and a process that actually took nine months was alleged to be done by the Board automatically, like the vise and fall of a few pounds of salary. The regulation relied oh by the secretary'and the Committee did not refer to the staff of a school at all, but to the salaries of the teachers as long as they hold their respective pys:that school. It was a mere assertion, unheard of till this moment, that this regulation of February, 1899, superseded a clear regulation of 1896, and the established practice of the Board. But '"why should he reason on this point when he had a fairly confounding answer to the Committee? It was simply this: He held in his hand the regulations dated 1896, of which 43, requiring.two quarters, was one. And what did he find? The regulation alleged by the Committee to have been passed in February, 1899, was not then passed, but always was a regulation, and was actually seen' to be regulation 10 of these very regulations of 1896, of which 43 was one/ What he had called a "desperate shift" added £lB5 to the legitimate £l2O, giving a total of £305 to be added to the apparent ctst of the schools. It was before the Minister now, and this assertion of the Committee that regulation 10 superseded regulation 45 of the same date could be used by the public as a standard to measure the Board's other assertions by. So strongly did he feel Mr Borrie's attack on himself that he (Mr Fraser) made it his business to go up to Oamaru and to answer him at his own door. He refuted the chairman of the Waitaki High School, where both the man and the facts Avere known. ■ Referring to his letter to the Minister of Education, wherein he (Mr Fraser) dealt with the cost to the State and to parents of secondary education at Oamaru, as compared with other parts of Otago, Mr Borrie got up at the Board, and, as chairman of that High School Board, bore emphatic and authoritative witness that his (Mr Fraser's) statements each and all regarding that school were not simply mjstaken, but were deliberately fals-e. " Now, when he read Mr Pryde's. unauthorised'letter and its attack on and misrepresentation of the district high schools, he at once sat down and wrote everywhere for the-latest official information, for he never wrjr;: a. lino of the kind without a real endeavor to be as accurate as he could. Mr Borrie vris chairman of the Waitaki High School Board, and was bound to know, and he go-t a specific, authoritative denial to even' flgtro he (the speaker) had quoted. Said Mr Borrie: "Firstly, the revenue was not £2.077; secondly', the fees were not £717; thirdly, the pupils were not 300, >r even 99" ; and so on. AVcll now, would they believe it, he held in his hand the last balancesheet and returns laid before Parttairent, signed "Donald Borrie," and t:.ai-e were printed in that return every figure hi: (Mr Fraser) had quoted? That Very -eturn v. as quoted by the Committee, and the figures repudiated by Mr Borrie bore his own signature, and were at his hand when waving up that report Not content "with mere contradiction, Mr Borrie went further. He proceeded to show by arithmetic how false his (Mr Fraser's) figures were. " lie wculd ask how one could get £717 from 100 l uj ils at £4 10s per head." Now this wa?"fitter the controversial style of the Committee—put an untruth in his mouth and then refute it. He never said or implied that £717 was the product of 100 pupils at £4 10s. He simply gave the total amount of fees as stated, comparing the amount with the gross revenue. He also stated that the lees -were not. about £lO, but just £4 10s. Both statements were correct. And the jugglery of the chairman of the Waitaki Higa t-ctoo'l was explained by the fact that he was concealing part of the truth that was relative to his statement, but was rot rc.la.tivc to what he (Mr Fraser) . bad been discussing which was the cf>st of secondary education of Class X pupils. Mr . Borrie did not explain that there was a lower school at the Waitaki High School of children below the Fourth Standard, and that for these a higher fee was charged . This fact had no bearing on the question he (Mr Fraser) was writing' the Minister on—and he did not,mcntion it any more than he would have mentioned.the cost of boarding or of washing. The truth was, therefore, exactly as he (Mr Fraser) had put it. He held the prospectus in his hand, and £4 10s were the fees for the pupils in question. Again,.in that.very letter of his —misquoted, garbled, and misrepresented by Mi' Borrie—the other fact that Mr Borrie alleged he had concealed, but which Mr Borrie himself concealed, was truly given. He wrote in that letter: "Waitaki High School, revenue £2.377, fees only £717, boys 64. girls 35, say 100. Here the cost was £23 per pupil, and less the fees the cost to the Stfate is £l6 per pupil." This" statement,

ithorefore, showed the average fee paid by parents did not exceed £7. So even on this style of reasoning—that was, including the cost of pupils below the Fourth Standard—the chairman of the Waitoki High School was shown to be conclusively w l rong, and the triple-signed report once more refuted. Although that Committee sought to bolster up a misrepresentation by professing to quote the parliamentary return. referred to. even that return was against them, for it gave in a foot-note under the Girls' High Schopl the fact he contended for: ".£4 10s for pupils of. primary schools who have passed Standard IV."' They could now judge for themselves who was the honest informant, the speaker or Mr Donald Borrie and his Select Committee. Several school committeemen had told him (Mr Fraser) that the present chairman of the Board got elected on the, strength of a. strong anti-official circular he had sent through the province, wherein lie declared that it would be his business to see all correspondence laid on the table. No chairman of the Board had ever done more to keep the Board's business within an official coterie. Letters addressed to the Board were dealt with, and riot submitted to the Board. They had that notorious one sent to the Minister. They had the secretary and chairman usurping the functions of Board and committees alike, and appointing teachers right and left to hold their positions on a day's notice from the secretary-. He had, unearthed the fact that forfy teachers were actually holding positions in this way, a large proportion of them being appointed by the present chairman. Because he (Mr Fraser) had been persistent in compelling public attention to these and other'matters an attempt was made to exclude him altogether from getting information except such as was dribbled or filtered, through the official following at the table. He had been refused even to see the Board's letter book at such a time as he could consult it; and the Board took up the position he could noly get information by begging for it in driblets at the Board's tab'le. He. however, believed he had as much right as the chairman to be fully acquainted with the interior ramifications and- correspondence of the Board, and when he found that the Board backed the chairman.as they had done at the last.meeting he (Mr Fraser) lost no time in bringing the matter to an issue. Accordingly, he asked a solicitor to move the Supreme Court to put him in possession of his rights as a member of the Board, and the solicitor lost no time in setting about it, with the following result:—"Referring to your letter of even date, I have asked Mr Pryde to lay before you any book containing records of the Board's business that you may ask for.—Henry Harraway, chairman OJO. Board." That showed clearly that, however determined an official coterie on the Board might be to keep an appointment in the dark, their powers were not. equal to their intentions, and speedy relinquishment of an untenable position was all that was left for them. He had been appointed to what was facetiously termed a Finance Committee, but he never saw any finance, nor did he know that the Committee had any functions to perform. The Finance Committee —:«s far as he could make out—was the secretary, and, in his opinion, the present attack on the district high schools emanated largely from the Finance Committee. Whoever was responsible for it, he trusted they would be'baffled. One thing was clearthat the official information sent to the Minister which he had criticised that night would have to be sifted. No reliance could be placed on the Board's official information till a clear issue was arrived at, and he intended to appeal to the Minister in the most pointed terms to hold'an investigation.into the facts of the case. The'representation sent to the Minister was exaggerated to the extent of hundreds of pounds. It was not the exact amount he battled for, but the principle of straightforward representation. In conclusion, Mr Fraser said he was prepared to give his opponents a clear issue. Let them join in demanding an independent Investigation, as to the correctness of the u/.ficial information given to the Minister and to the public on this question. He would stand to all he had said before any competent and public court instituted to inquire. Surely the Board, who declared him wrong in every particular, but had failed to shake a single statement of his, could stand this test. And he was prepared- to go further. He was prepared to lav his resignation on the table if his opponents did likewise, and take the verdict of the province. If tßey did, he, for' one, would lay a clear issue before the people, and would face their verdict without fear. Something then might be accomplished for the education of the children of the province, whose interests and new wants were continually being forgotten, trodden under foot, and buried,°while the energies of the members of the Board were consumed in devouring each other, and in wrestling year after year with masterful officialism. ' He was almost single-handed and could do little.. The power and the patience and endurance of one man were limited : but the province and able men in the province, if- they would grapple with the situation, could accomplish much.