INSPECTION OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11870, 20 April 1899, Page 4

INSPECTION OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

We are sorry that the correspondent who writes to us this morning in reference to the refusal of the Board of Education to undertake the inspection of private schools should persist in believing that the members of the Board are actuated by religious bigotry. He refuses to accept any other explanation of their action. “ The Catholics are satisfied,”he says, “that if any other denomination, Jew or Gentile, had applied for inspection, it would have been granted.” We can scarcely credit that this represents the deliberate conclusion of the Catholics of Canterbury. They must know that the question of inspection affects other schools than their own, and that there is a great deal more in the arguments of the Board than 1 our correspondent is prepared to admit. The Board would never think of granting inspection to one denomination and refusing it to another; when it agrees to inspect the Catholic or the Episcopalian or the Wesleyan schools it must make provision for the inspection of every private school in the district. With such a contingency in view it is scarcely fair or courteous for our correspondent to describe Mr Adams’s allusion to the financial aspect of the question as “ childish.” The cost of inspecting the private schools in North Canterbury would amount to at least £3OO or £4OO a year, and, whatever the sum might be, it would have to be provided from the Board’s ordinary funds. Mr Adams was absolutely correct when he said tnat the Government made no provision for the inspection of private schools. If the Board undertook this work it would have to reduce its expenditure in some other direction, and we confess that we are unable to see where it, could make the necessary saving. The same objection cannot, however, be urged against the appointment of an inspector for private schools by the central authority. This would be a very proper step fertile Education Department to take, and we trust that the new Secretary will press it upon the attention of the Minister. It would probably cost £2OOO or £3OOO a year, but it would be a very reasonable concession to the Catholics, and would repair an obvious defect in the present system of education. In the meantime it is only fair to remember that children attending private schools are at perfect liberty to present themselves at the inspectors’ ordinary examinations. Wo are aware that this is not exactly what our correspondent desires, but

it shows that the Board is prepared to pra-i vide all the facilities for inspection that lie within its means.