OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6535, 6 February 1882, Page 5

OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

TO THH EDITOB.

Sib,— Mr Tanored, in his letter which appeared in to-day’s issue, advocates that School Committees should have more power than they have at present,. “He knows not what he asks.”

Were the Committees to have the same power placed in their hands as is now in the hands of the Board of Education, it would lead to such confusion that the Government would soon find themselves without any respectable teachers, for none but those who could truckle to the whims and freaks of ignorant and often thoroughly bad men could possibly hold the positions of teachers. Mr Tanored evidently looks at the aspect of scholastic affairs from his own elevated, intellectual and honourable platform. Were all those who aspire (P) to the position of School Committeemen as fit in every way as Mr Tanored, then it might be well for more power to be placed in their bands; but I would like to remind Mr Tanored that there are men who can hardly write their own names, who , get themselves elected on School Committees. 1 can assure Mr Tanored that such men as these do not always act in an honourable manner in matters scholastic. Would Mr Tanored, because ho could not find any fault with a teacher to report to the Board of Education in connection with the ordinary routine of school work—meet his confreres in a P.H. or elsewhere, and concoct plans to damage the name and reputation of a teacher P Would he canvass the district and slander the teacher to all whom he came in contact with P Most

emphatically no I!! Bnt inch thing* have been done by Committeemen, and " yet they are all honourable men.” Mr Tancred alludes to the law of libel; it is, I think, a great pity that some of the slanderous mem* bers of the Committees have not ere this been made to feel the effects of the law by the much abused teachers. I prefer, Mr Editor, to exist under the "despotism”—if it be a despotiim, of the present order of things, to running the risk of being utterly extinguished under the petty, tyrannical government of a local School Committee. 1 would not have the public imagine that all School Committeemen are dishonourable ; there are many noble exceptions.—l am, &o. f y a g. Christchurch, Feb, 4, 1882.