Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1891. OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXVII, Issue 116, 30 May 1891, Page 2

Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1891. OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Once more the question of education comes forward, the department dealing with it being one of the few which the present Government do not intend to retrench. Considering that retrenchment is the fashion at the present time, the question naturally arises, " Is there not any means of reducing the gradually increasing cost of State education ?" If this query is put to the ordinary elector at any time prior to the excitement of an election contest, the answer will almost invariably be, that some reduction is possible. In the minds of many free education should cease with the Fourth Standard, others think that Education Boards should be abolished, and School Committees given larger districts, with extended powers ; still others favor a reduced syllabus, fewer pass subjects, less cram, centralisation and itinerancy of inspectors, as means to the same end, while there are those who boldly avow the belief that school buildings should be erected and maintained by localities out of their own rates, or at best with a £ for £ subsidy from tbe Government. That the present Ministry do not wish to tamper with the Act we can easily imagine for more reasons than one. In the first place the cry for the maintenance has become a kind of shibboleth with the Liberal party leaders, not that their following are by any means so enthusiastic upon it, but because the cry of " free, secular, and compulsory " is mouth-filling, and 3ounds large. But there are not only the dangers of a lopping off of two standards to be considered by the Government, there are the further difficulties that the Catholics are dissatisfied, and rightly so too if they will comply with the State requirements, and the Bible-in-Sohools party would try to smuggle m some clause which would insist on* the Bible being read every day. That it is time the whole question was re-opened there can belittle doubt. Since the Act wan passed m 1877, the alterations m its working have been made by "Regulations of His Excellency the Governor m Council," and there are few colonial institutions which can work fourteen years without needing a change. The Post thinks that £150,000 a year could be cut off the education vote without impairing the real efficiency of the system, and it indicates the following aa reforms which might be adopted :— " The abolition of the Education Boards, the concentration of the inspecting power, the raising of school age, and the cessation of free instruction after ihe Fourth Standard (or even after the Fifth)." With the most of these we can agree, though of course a complete reorganisation of the department would be necessary before the powers now given to Education Boards could be divided. It would be as absurd to give small School Committees the same powers, as it is at the present time for the Boards to go through the farce of " consulting " them, and then acting just as they please. The concentration of inspecting power is either a necessity, or the InspectorGeneralship a sinecure that can be done away with. By concentration, the plan of having uniform papers, and also, let us hope, the abolition of catchy and useless questions would be secured. If, however, free education is to cease at the Fourth Standard, the average age for passing which is twelve years, then we are inclined to think that it would be a hardship to raise the age, because it is well for those who must, by reason of circumstances, leave school as soon as they reach twelve, to have the advantage of school surroundings as long as possible. The principle that the state must see that all are educated is now generally recognised, and we cannot go back on that. It is now only a question of degree. In order that no child of poor parents, who are quite unable to pay fees for education above the Fourth Standard, should be debarred from the advantages, : we should like to see some provision made by which they, or at any rate the brightest of them, should be allowed to proceed further on. The Scotch have an. excellent system m this respect. No one expects free education, but by the liberality of the educational bodies a boy is enabled by bursaries, etc., to win his way up, get free education, and possibly win the highest University honors. So long as we do not endanger the success of the- bright lads, whose only fault is poverty, there can be no great hardship m following the Scotch m some measure by creating a spirit of independence and self-reliance among parents m the way of charging them fees for such education as is above the State standard. The questions of Catholic aid, Bible-in-Schools, charging the cost of erecting buildings to localities, etc., are incidental to a full discussion of the subject, but we have not space to allude to them at length. We agree that the Catholics deserve some assistance, and think that religious teaching is one better dealt with by parents, Sunday School teachers, and the clergy, than by a mixed lot of school teachers, who are selected for their secular knowledge not on account of religious belief or the want of it. If the clergy, after all these years of influence and teaching, have to acknowledge that the first decade of secular training shows that parents neglect to train up their children, then we fear they are only condemning themselves, and proving that m the past they or their predecessors have been singularly apathetic. The whole question of the education system revolves round the query, " Are we paying too dear for our whistle ?" If it can be Bhown that we are, it is the duty of the Government to retrench ; if on the other band if is proved we are not, but that the system wants remodelling, it is equally their duty to bitfng down a bill and let the Parliament settle the lines on which the alterations should be made.