The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1912. EDUCATIONAL CHANGES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 13 November 1912, Page 4

The Star. Delivered every evening by 5 o'clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Opunake, Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1912. EDUCATIONAL CHANGES.

For many years arter it came into force on the Ist of January, 1878, the iliducation Act or .1877 was regarded as a kind of Ark of the Covenant. if criticised at all, it had to be criticised with bated breath, and its • amendment was out of the question. We think that the hrst person to criticise it pubiicly with anything like comprehensiveness was Sir Hercules Robinson (afterwards Lord Rosmead), not long before he retired from the Governorship in September, 1880. But, of course, his criticism was non-poii-tical, and we remember that he was mainly concerned about the cost as it then stood, and was likely to be. His Excellency expressed no opinion' concerning the secular character of the Act, or as to the effect it was likely to have on the moral sense of the succeeding generations; but, as an outside observer with the facts and figures at his command, he gave his reasons for seriously doubting whether the country could stand the cost. Hi* forecast of its steady increase has certainly been justified, and were he alive and here to-day he could fairly say, "I told you so." That is, the cost has increased at a right royal rate, and even within the last eleven years by more than half-a-million. But this is by the way, and the fact is referred to merely in connection with Sir Hercules Robinson's criticism, which we have mentioned merely as the first and for many years the only criticism that was listened to in connection with the country's new system of education. Of course there were special reasons for resisting and resenting interference with the Act —that is, its authors and supporters had such reasons, for they felt that its free, secular, arid compulsory principles were the fruit of centuries of effort, begun in the Old World, and possible to carry into effect only in these younger lands; and they looked upon amendments as designs of the enemy, or as things likely to favor those designs. We express no opinion on the controversial issues as they then stood, but merely state matters of historic fact. Still, as time went on, common sense called for changes, some of which have been made with advantage—if not to the cause of education properly so-called, to the national system and its administration. First came the evolution of a colonial scale for salaries and staffs, and then the excellent scheme for the superannuation of teachers. As administrative changes, these stand high, and they have, we think, been made without prejudice to* the free, secular and compulsory provisions of the Act. And now other changes are in view, in consequence of the recommendations made by the Education Commission set up by the short-lived Mackenzie Government, which, by the way, apparently had a notion that the Commission should be like itself—also short-lived, almost to the point of notoriety. The order of reference it entrusted to the Commission covered the whole field of primary, secondary, and technical education, yet the Commission was asked to report in three weeks! This as an instance of slap-bang and lightning-change business was almost as good as that of M. Thiers, who, when he went to' London as Minister for Louis Philippe, asked the Secretary to the Treasury to spare a quarter of an hour to .unravel to him all the mystery and magnificence of England's national finance. Naturally, the Commissioners protested against the proposed precipitancy, and they took three months to do their work"; probably had they taken three more, it would have been to the country's advantage. Anyway, what the Commission has actually recommended is the establishment of an Advisory Council of Education; the reduction of the number of Boards to five: Auckland for the first; Taranaki, Wanganui and Hawke's Bay for the second; Wellington, Nelson and Marlborough, third; North and South Canterbury and West--1 land, fourth; and Otago and Southland, fifth. The Commission has proposed, too, that school committees should be abolished, and replaced by school boards with larger districts, and the local control of all primary, secondary, technical and Maori schools within their jurisdiction. Then the inspectorate has long been in a somewhat unsatisfactory state, and the Commission, has proposed that each of the five education board districts should have a chief inspector, two senior inspectors, and several ordinary, inspectors ; the chief inspector to receive a yearly salary of £600, rising by annual increments of £10 to £659; senior inspectors, £500, rising to £550; in- ' spectors £400, rising to £450; and the whole inspectorial staff, equal travelling allowances. This would be a practical improvement on the present state of things. It will be seen that these proposals are administrative, and probably the second and fourth are not only advisable but necessary; but the first and third seem to be subjects for reserved judgment. In any case, no amendments as yet made or proposed are really radical in their nature; but perhaps something truly in this line will be reached within the next quarter of a century. The power to abolish district high schools, given by the Amendment Act of last session, is a step m what may be termed the larger direction. But the coming comprehensive reform will probably reduce the cost of the administrative machinery and also very materially the amount of that machinery itself. It is absurdly extravagant for a small country like New Zealand. It would be more to the interest of real education to have a larger number of technical schools and primary schools, with fewer subjects to teach and fewer children in attendance* at each school, for then the teaching would be more thorough and effective because there would be a more intimate' more individual contact between teacher and pupil—a most desirable thin" supposing the teacher, to have the requisite character, ability and conscientiousness, which he or she would have, as a rule. With primary and technical schools thus increased in number and thus taught—their last standard or grade potentially linking up with the first in secondary schools — with secondary education confined" to real secondary schools,. freely open to all pupils properly qualified to enter on their curriculum, but to no others, and with the university colleges equally open to all academically fit to enter their courses, but to no others —then New Zealand would have a truly educated people, for even the children who went no further than the primary schools, would surely know what they did know with thoroughness. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to he wished.