THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1882. EDUCATION IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2702, 5 December 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1882. EDUCATION IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Ths hint dropped by the Board of Education for the benefit of the School Committees of Christchurch, that it is advisable that compulsory education be adopted in this city does not come, one moment too soon. Anyone who has cared to pay any attention to the matter must have been surprised and grieved to see the number of totally uneducated children that are allowed to run about the streets. The danger of such a state of things being allowed to remain as our population becomes thicker, is too apparent to need comment. And outside of this view of the case it is self-evident that this want of education among so many children is a totally illogical outcome of the Education Act. That Act, while providing that the adoption of the compulsory clauses should bo left optional with Committees, presumed, wo imagine, that such Committees would be moved by ordinary considerations of prudence and humanity. It was manifestly in the idea of the framers of the Act that Committees, when they saw that the parents in their districts were unwilling to educate their children under the Act, would force them to do so. The Act was certainly, to a certain extent, experimental, because it was uncertain how far free education would be taken advantage of when all had to pay for it alike. But, we presume, it was never contemplated that it was to be left to School Committees as to whether children in their districts were to he brought np properly or not. It was thought that the good sense of the parents in any district would show them the right course, and failing that, that the Committees, who would include tho wisest heads in the district, would step ia to tell the parents their duty. If the framers of tho Act wore mistaken in some instances both in parents and Committees, it is decidedly the duty of the

more central authority to throw out a strong bint on the subject, and if that is not taken advantage of, to represent the existing state of things to the Government or Parliament and demand a remedy. It has always been, to our mind, a flaw in the Education Act that compulsory education was not made universal. Why the possession of the full advantages of the Act should be left to the option of I/ocal Committees wo have never bees able to comprehend. The state of things to be enforced by the Act is either a bad or a good one. If bad, why have it at all ? If good, why not make it of general application p It ia not as if there were two questions as to tho advantages of education, as thoro is abont the advanvantages of public houses and other matters where option is allowed. Children must be educated, or social order ia endangered. If neither parents or Committees will step into the breach and see the thing done, the Boards must. It is consequently with much pleasure that we have noticed the adoption of tho resolution to which we have alluded by the Board of this Education District.