Scholarships.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 609, 19 May 1891, Page 3

Scholarships.

[to the editor. I Sir, —A few months ago attention was directed to a matter of much interest and importance, educational])', to this district. I mean the allocation of funds for scholarships, and the position the Board of Governors of the Gisborne High School should, in my opinion, take with regard to the supplementing of those funds. It was thought by many, and I felt sanguine myself, that the Board intended then to do a generous thing (not unjust, mind you, although generous), and set aside part of its comfortable credic balance for scholarships. However, nothing that I know of has been done in the matter ; the Board’s accumulating funds are permitted to remain idle, or nearly eo, from year to year, while “Some mute, inglorious Milton,” or a future Premier ef the Colony, perhaps languishes and loses his chance in life for want of the nece.sary scholarship, That this is thus, is much to be regretted, for although the Board is acting in accordance with the law, yet the law is not always right, and in this particular instance, I think it is radically wrong, as it gives to the Board permission to hoard money that should otherwise be doing incalculable good. Moreover, the is taking advantage of this permission, and I know it is the intention of some of its members to save on until sufficient has been accumulated to enable the Board to erect palatial High School buildings, to become in all probability a “ whi’.e elephant” on a small scale. The District High School here is admittedly doing much superior work to any of the ordinary High Schools in the Colony. Let the Board then obtain legal permission (“Where there’s a wi’l there’s a way ”) to support this school with all its might ; increase the master’s salary to a sum commensurate with the importance of the work that he does, expend three or four hundred pounds ia providing District High School accommodation, dirtribute the balance in scholarships, and there you are. This indeed would be a “ consummation devoutediy to be wished,” and the difficulties in its way are not insurmountable. If the Board will only put its shoulder to Ihe wheel of progress, rise above class prejudices, and administer its trust—the people’s money—to the boat advantage of the people, the thing is accomplished.—l am, &o , Sees.