OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6534, 4 February 1882, Page 6

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

TO THE BDXTOB.

Sib, —Your correspondent, “Householder," in criticising the reason which I gave for retiring from the Committee of the West Christchurch School District, expresses himself in so kindly a spirit towards myself that I feel bound to say a few words in reply. My reason for the course which I took was correctly reported in the local papers. That reason is that the local Committees are entrusted with no substantial powers or responsibility. The Board does ererything for them, and manages their schools according to its own will on a oast iron system. This is the system which, as I understand, your correspondent considers very nearly perfect—and for this reason—became the Committees would abuse any power entrusted to them, while every confidence would be placed in the Board, that it will do impartial justice and manage the schools better than the Committees. This view appears to me very like that which commends itself to some minds that a good despotism is the best form of Government. Doubtless much may be said in favour of this view; nevertheless it is now generally accepted as a well established axiom that bodies, elected by the people with whose interests they have to dead, are, upon the whole, better than the wisest and purest despotism, and, among others, for this reason —that they represent more accurately the wishes and feelings and, it may be, the prejudices of their constituents. I do not say that the present local Committees do represent the people ; but this I attribute to the fact that under the present Act they are made mere nonentities. It does not matter to the constituencies who or what they are. They can do neither good nor harm to the district. Any one who has read the reports of the annual meetings of householders can hardly rise from the perusal without feeling that there is, as a general rule, no interest manifested by the public in the election. The attendance generally is very Scanty, and the whole affair passes off very like a ■ solemn farce. But would this be the case if the Committees were entrusted with real power ? Would not the householders be mnoh more careful than they are at present in selecting those who were to have the management of the school and to direct and control the education of the district ? And would not the Committees exercise their functions under a sense of responsibility which they do not experience now? It seems to me impossible to argue from what Committees would do now to what they would do under a totally new set of conditions. In the one case they have no power and no responsibility, in the other their power would bfe supremo and their responsibility proportionately great. Moreover, the Board does not, and indeed cannot properly, apply exceptional remedies when called for by the whole of a district. ‘ Suppose, for instance, that a teacher by his habits or demeanour, or even by his domestic arrangements, offended the moral instincts of a whole district; that the parents thought him so bad an example to their children that they preferred withdrawing them from instruction altogether rather than have them contaminated by the bad influences at work there; in such a case as this the Board would uphold their teacher unless some specific act of immorality could be established by legal proof, and it must be remembered that even should such proof be possible it would be very difficult to obtain the necessary evidence from witnesses who had the terrors of the law of libel before their eyes. What I desire is that the governing body of each district should be the reflex of the mind of the people of that district* I believe that were they entrusted with sufficient power they would be quite as anxious to do justice to all as the Board; and they would understand, far better than the Board can ever understand, the wants and feelings of the people, as well as the local circumstances of the district.—l am, Ac., HENRY JOHN TANOBHD.