PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16358, 30 September 1913, Page 10

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY'S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegraph.) SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING. Tho University Senate has endeavoured to prevent the waste of effort that might result from the sporadic nature of our university by the establishment of special schools. Thus we have only ono school of medicine, that at Dunedin, and only ono school of engineering, that at Canterbury College. It is at these special schools that a condition of things obtains which is in keeping with true university ideals. The students devoto all their time to their work. They are brought into intimate daily contact with their professors and lecturers. Their degrees aro awarded chiefly on their professor's estimate of their practical and theoretical examinations. It is generally recognised that the course for the degree of Bachelor of Engineering awarded at Canterbury College will bear comparison from tho point of view of practical and intellectual training with the courses of tho best university schools of technology in the world, and Dr Starr Jordan must bo ignorant of its real nature when he asserts that "a clever memoriser could pass all tho engineering examinations at Christchurch and not have tho slightest htness for practical engineering work." —"New Zealand Herald." NO USE TALKING.

The appointment of Mr Browne to his higher post has been made by the Commissioners, who have decided the officer's classification and, therefore, his salary, and that is the end of it. It is quite idle to ask questions of tho Minister as to whether the best qualified man has been selected or whether applications were invited or permitted. Mr Allen does not know anything about it. Ho is only Minister of Education, he is not a Public Service Commissioner. The situation now appears to be extraordinary and oven unconstitutional. It may be so, but that is the fault of Parliament, which has surrendered its rights and responsibilities. —"New Zealand Times." SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS. A lawyer or a medical man after obtaining 'his degree starts his practice, and in four or five years' time usually earns a comfortable income. What aro the facts in tho case of assistants in secondary schools? Men who have twentv-five and thirty years of service behind them are in receipt of tho comparatively poor remuneration of from £3OO to £325; in fact it is astonishing to find that the average salary paid to assistants in our secondary schools should be just over £235, and tins to men upon whose efficiency and sense of duty much of the future of tnis dominion depends.—" Dominion."

DIRECTOR OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION.

No new office has been created and no new appointment has been made. Mr Browne has no now duties to perform., and when Mr Hanan stated that during his brief experience as Minister of Education he found that Mr Browne was an able and industrious officer who did his work exceptionally well the whole bottom fell out of the Opposition case The attack which was to have had such disastrous results for the Government onded in the confusion and shame of the scandalmongers on the Opposition benches.—" Otago Daily Times."

SOMETHING WRONG SOmEWHERE Mr Browne may be, and -wo have no doubt is, a capable officer, one who has grown with the development of the manual and technical branch of the Education Department. "We are aware that ho has been largely responsible for the control of this branch of the Department's work, but wo say advisedly that it is almost inconceivable that the Public Service Commissioners, without either the suggestion or direct recommendation of the Minister of Education, should have created a new position o'f the first importance, to which Parliament had not yet assigned a salary.—Dunedin " Star.'