EDUCATION ACT. TO THE EDITOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4692, 27 November 1876, Page 3

EDUCATION ACT. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —I have seen many remarks made in your paper in reference to this subject, but not one has put it forward in the true light. If I understand it aright, it means this: That each parent will be obliged to send his or her children to school, at an expense of £2 a-year for each. In other words, each parent will have to pay four times the amount he has hitherto paid for the education of his children, and the tax will fall on rich and poor alike. Hitherto those who had none to educate, and those who were well circumstanced paid a certain sum, thus lending a helping hand to those who were burdened with children, who, without this will never be able to meet the tax-gatherer's demand of £6 or £8 per year for three or four children. Another view presented to our notice is this, it opens the way to low class education, to be got in most of our private, uninspected schools. If, for instance, the private school can afford to take the child at £2 per annum or Is per week, and omitting holidays and some weeks of illness, it wifl ■ be better attended than the public one, with its trained, - experienced, and certificated teacher and commodious building. In addition to compulsory attendance we should leave children or parents no discretion to send children to any school they wish outside their district, without special which should receive investigation, 43 it opens a means of indiscriminate removals to suit the varied tastes of ignorant parents and idle scholars. The directions of the Board cannot be fairly carried out by any discriminating teacher. The parent wants his child hurried on'in reading and writing, as is daily evideuced by the_ remarks of either one or the other, wishing for new books or new copies; and if a teacher of judgment and spirit refuses, the child goes, or is sent to one who easily accommodates him, so -< as to increase his attendance 'on the roll, and thus make money out of him. In addition to the examination of the advanced pupils of each school, it wonld be well to hava one for the junior department, from the age of 9 to 12, when a certain number of the best from each school could be forwarded to be examined in writing,' • elementary arithmetic, geography," and the writing o£ letters, at which examination,: onoeinj each year, prizes could be distributed to the mo 3& deserving—or, 'perhaps,- better still, illuminated cards, - with the pupil's name written thereon.—l am, &c., • . : Paowm