"SIC ITUR AD ASTRA."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6786, 17 August 1883, Page 3

"SIC ITUR AD ASTRA."

TO THE EDITOR* Sir, —A good many people who had had special opportunities of following the profundity of Mr. Laishley's mind, and ganging, the rare perfection of his educational acquirements, were, naturally, considerably surprised at his election to the position of Chairman of our Board of Education. Their surprise, of course, was not due to the fact of Ms having been chosen by his fellowmembera on the Board to preside over their deliberations ; but they felt astonished that anyone so deeply versed in the theory and practice of mental and moral training as Mr. Richard Laishley, jun., should be content to waste hie precious time and genius in the work oi bo.ssiug school co'lnmitteeß, and receiving reports and instruction from the Board's Inspector of Schools. The new Chairman soon afforded us. a conspicuous example of how the of genius can irradiate with the glow oi original thought the uninteresting details q£ commonplace matters. At this 3iSne ineeting of the Board at which occurred tlid momentous event of his election, the comparatively limited intellect* of his fellow members were electrified by the delivery of an impromptu oration*,, in the coursfe of which tti.e new highpriest of learning and virtue expounded-with " unpremeditated art" and elaboration his "views" on education. The vast stores of his erudition, his ripe scholarship, and his startling originality of mind weie now for the first time made patent to the world. Indeed, his erudition has always appeared to me as in some aoit a hindrance to the expression of his own valuable thoughts, for whenever he attempts to express an idea of his own,, his too vivid meoiory jerks in a passage, more or less, rdevaap to the ■subject in hand, from Thucydides, the lost books of the Sybils, or some equally convincing authority Upon questions of Board-school management, fciis classical attainments are made manifest; by his copious Jjatin quotations, rivalling in number and variety of author the comprehensive columns of Valpy's Latin Delectus. Sir, if this paragon of wisdom and virtue, retains his position on the Board for another year, what stirring educational developments may We not look fur ! Teachers in whom there shall be no sickness ; teachers piysionomieally beautiful, and beaming all over with "sympathetic accord;" teachers who have made a clean breast of it as regards religion and sex; teachers who will be dumb when effrontery and facupus ignorance clothed in a little brief authority essays to injure them by robbing them of a portion of their hard-earned rest. But, alas.! the millennium is not yet. ! —l am, &c, G.L.P.