PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15919, 3 May 1912, Page 8

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegraph.) A HUMANITARIAN W 7 ORK. More than once we have called. attention to tho good and graduallyprogressive work done at the special school for. boys of feeble mind at Otekaike. More than once, again, wo have insistently urged the desirability of increasing the potentialities of that work by means of Ministerial and parliamentary sympathy, the sympathy which takes the directly-practical form of active notice and monetary assistance. It is a work intimately connected with that great schenio of humanitarian policy which Mr Seddon, with the sure instinct of genius, conceived towards the close of his life, and which it is only fair to say the Ward Government made an honest attempt to carry into effect. Mr Fowlds took a genuine interest in the Otekaike institution, and Parliament has passed a reasonably substantial vote for the addition of a girls' department. Ministerial changes are apt to injure, or, at least, to hamper and delay, movements of this kind, but wo feel sure that Mr Hanan, whoso intelligent educational enthusiasm we thoroughly appreciate, will not allow the vital project of the care and control of the feeble-minded to fall into abeyance.— Dunedin " SLar."