The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1906. A PROPOSED MEMORIAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 14097, 26 June 1906, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1906. A PROPOSED MEMORIAL.

In tiie fulness of time some of tie friends of the dead. Premier will move in the matter of raising a monument to his memory, and we. hope that when the day comes the oommonsense of the promoters and of the public will not desert them. One proposal in tills connection has already received rather influential journalistic approval, - and • a proposal, strangely enough, which has scarcely one feature to recommend it to New Zealanders. Mr Cecil Rhodes, it will be remembered, gave proof at once of his love for Oxford and of his ardent faith in Anglo-Saxon unity and of his broad imperialism by bringing together at Oxford students from the ends of the earth. His desire was clearly to make Oxford tho Imperial University. There was sanity and a logical sequence in Mr Rhodes’s ideas. But it is proposed now that New Zealand should emulate this Rhodes Memorial of Mr Rhodes’s own creation by creating Seddon. Memorial Scholarships, and in order to make these scholarships the expression of both imperialistic and national patriotism it la further proposed that the scholarships should he utilised for sending at least half-a-dozen of our brightest boys and girls out of the country and keeping them out. To award one scholarship to a boy and one to a girl each year under the suggested scheme, it would be necessary to have an income of at least £ISOO a year, since the scholarships are to be tenable for three years. The capital "sum to be raised is thus at least £30,000, which would leave no margin for contingencies. With this £30,000 we would send abroad each year to be educated one hoy and one girl in the sure and certain hope that the boys would never come back to us and that if the girls came hack they would get married and their higher education would be of no value to the State. It is admittedly good , that we should give opportunities to our bright young men and women to obtain the best education that money can buy, hut there is another aspect of tho matter that is quite as important. We do not believe that the expenditure of £ISOO a year in tho manner suggested would confer even a fractional benefit on Now Zealand, and to tain of the scheme as “ Imperial ” is simply to use a catch-penny title that is absolutely meaningless. The idea, in fact, is a very poor imitation 'of Mr Rhodes’s very generous scheme. Dr Evans has been busily instructing us of late as to the need for a modern chemical laboratory. With £30.000, the smallest- capital sum with which the suggested scholarship scheme could bo carried out, New Zealand could be provided with a great laboratory for chemical study and research and a second great institution for physics, both equipped with the most modern appliances and fully supplied. With these • institutions in the colony there would bo plenty of inducement to our young men to take up scientific work as a profession and. we should not then have to drive our,young Rutherfords out of the colony to bo trained. Or if this suggestion did not meet with the approval of the public we utilise- the money to help bright boys and girls to remain at school. It was Mr Scddon’s desire that the benefits of secondary school education should be available to all children, but in practice his free-place system does not always enable parents to keep their children at school. An extension of the scholarship system so that a boy or girl could earn, say, £l3 a year and still remain at school would be- an untold boon to many poor parents. This seems to us to bo absolutely in keeping with Mr Seddon’s own ideas on the subject of education. But, whatever is done, wo do hope the colony will find some better use for its £30,000 than merely sending a hoy and a girl each year to the United States or England or Germany.