NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS.

Evening Star, Issue 12762, 15 March 1906, Page 6

NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIPS.

• THE INCOME LDIIT. [SPF-dAI, TO THIS RtAE.] CHKISTCHURCH, Ma-rch 15. In its editorial the 'Lyttelton Times' this morning twits tlie Premier with, seeming to be determined not to understand the objections raised to " class " restriction placed upon the national scholarships. It says: "At Foxtail he boasted those scholarships were open to all children, attending the primary schools, 'no matter what'was the position of tbeir parents,' and vet the moment before he bad rtat/ed that they were confined to 'children of parents -whose income was not over £250 per year.' It is this income limit 'class distinction,' as Sir Wm. Russell called it in the House of Representatives, to which every wholehearted democrat is objecting. Even if there were any reason for excluding the children of the well-to-do and the rich from i scholarships, tho arbitrary line drawn is still absurd. A small tradesman with one child and no particular position to keep up on £250 a year ds much less in need of consideration than is a. clergyman or a superior clerk with half a doien cliiMren and a good appearance to maintain on £3OO a year. The Emit does not help the genuine working man one bit. and he does not want to be helped. Attendance at a primary school, rubject, of course, to the age limit, f-honld be the only qualification required. It would bo almost, as viicious to make monetary distinctions as it is to make rsUgiavß distinctions, and the result is sometimes yrte at; deplorable. There 'is reason to V , -vc that a number of scholarships are held by the children of parents who Lave deliberately understated their imronws. and l who are ready to excise their dishonesty by pleading the absurdity" of the rearnlations.