THE GISBORNE STANDARD AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Thursday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, July 5, 1888. THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 165, 5 July 1888, Page 2

THE GISBORNE STANDARD AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Thursday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, July 5, 1888. THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Be just and fear not; y,nt nil the ends thou aim’st at be thy country 8, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

The question of the hour, so far as New Zealand is concerned, is Retrenchment, and another question which seems almost inseparable from the first is tha 1 of Education. Some people seem nnable to consider the one without dragging in the other. At a meeting at Auckland the other day the question appears to have led to a labored discussion, and one of the principal advocates of cutting down the system was one of the ablest journalists in the colony, Mr G. M. Reed. On the score of retrenchment we are at one with those who desire it, but in our wish for the curtailment of expenditure do not let us follow out the idea without fully considering the circumstances which must come under our notice if wisdom is to guide our steps. Some colonial journals advise the changing of the school age with a persistency and warmth which are not conducive to the calm consideration of facts. We admit much can be said in favor of raising the school age from five to seven, but we believe that better reasons can be urged against any change, and our sympathy is entirely with those Auckland people who decided by a large majority, that economy could be more wisely effected in other directions than by interfering with the educational system of the colony.

We are told that our schools have to a great extent degenerated into “ nurseries ” for looking after the children of individuals at the expense of the State. If we are to maintain the efficiency of our system of education, we are convinced no alteration can ba made in this direction. Experience has taught us that when children are taken in hand during their tender years, they are much more easily trained in the habits of dicipline that are necessary if their successful intuition is to be ensured than would be the case a couple of years later. At that period they will will have attained that age when the frolicsome propensities of youth predominate in every healthy boy or girl—propensities which, with discipline, are a good feature, but when uncontrollable, may lead to serious mischief and blighted careers, and give

more than double the trouble to the teachers. We have not the figures at hand, forreference, but we ask anyone to consider what would be the result if the children under the age of seven at the Gisborne school were turned out to roam about the streets. To those in comfortable circumstances it might not be a matter of much moment, because they can afford private tuition and attention for their children; but the poor man has a hard struggle to provide his offspring with bread, and on his part it is totally impossible to secure assistance in the household. It must be remembered, too, that the teaching cannot be reduced on this account as some seem to sup? pose, because in many schools one teacher (with perhaps an assistant) has to do the work, and it could not be

done at less expense. Then as to the proposal to charge a fee for those boys and girls who have passed the fourth standard. It would be absolutely cruel and tyrannous to do such a thing. On the one hand it would be taxing the clever boy or girl for their abilities and diligence, while the poor boy or girl who was unable to attend regularly would be induced to neglect evening studies during enforced absence, from fear that he would bring a tax upon himself. The parents of the rich children would be enabled to pay the fees, while the less fortunate schoolmates would be compelled to face the world on an altogether unequal footing. Those who wogld make these changes are not sufficiently considerate of the interests that would be affecfed, and until it can be shown to us that our educational system is a failure, we must strongly oppose the ruining of it by foolish attempt? at curtailment. Our children will very soon have a bitter enough fight to remedy, the evil? which have been brought upon them by their forefathers, by whose borrowing and squandering the public estate has been mortgaged to an alarming extent, and do pot let us be so selfish as to deny those .upon whom the burden must fall the heaviest, the one great advantage which we, by a self-denial, can afford them.