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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7341, 30 May 1885, Page 4

We regrot very much to find that the membeia of the Grafton-road School Committee yesterday sent in their resignations to the Board of Education because the Board could not see their way to come to the same conclusion as they did with respect to the chastising of a pupil by the drill instructor, Mr. Mahon. The committee are, we believe' entirely in the wrong throughout. That their minds are somewhat confused is evidenced by the fact that, in the letter they sent yesterday, they " forward here, with our resignations." As the committee are elected by the householders, the Board of Education have no power to receive their resignations. It would seem, by the report of the inspector, that the discipline of this Grafton-road school is very bad. The Board, at their meeting on the Bth, resolved to draw . the attention of the committee to the fact, with a view to the evil being remedied. We may therefore take that for granted. The first necessity of effective teaching is therefore ' absent, and any master who comes into that school to teach anything must find his efforts neutralised. It seems that the drill instructor had found that it was impossible to maintain order and that things could not be remedied h* an appeal to the master. He therefore called out a boy who he saw misbehaving,, and gave him some strokes with a cane. Probably the head-master was annoyed at the administration of discipline being taken out of his hands, and sympathised-with the boy and hin parents. At all events, the case was brought before the Police Court, the evidence heard and the decision submitted to a tribunal at least as competent and dispassionate as the committee, ' or even the Board of Education. The result was that the complaint was dismissed, on hearing the evidence for the complainant only. The committee forwarded a statement and complaint to the Board, who, after hearing Mr. Mahon in reply, came to the conclusion that there was no ground for the complaint. Now the committee do not confine themselves to saying that the Board have come to a wrong conclusion, but in the most lofty manner declare that the Board had taken a " course of action which can only be the result of an utter ignoring on its part of the first principles of right and wrong." No doubt the Board have in the course of their history been guilty of such awful moral delinquency; but surely this case stands on a lower platform. After all, it is merely a question of degree. Was the beating administered to the boy of undue severity? Prom the evidence we have seen in the case, and from the decisions of the Police Court, - and of the Board of Education, we should say not. The magistrates heard the evidence, and dismissed the case ; the members of the Board, heard the evidence, and instead of censuring the drill instructor, they censured the committee and the head-maiter, because the school was in a bad state of discipline, necessitating sharp measures for correction. They did this, be it remembered, not only because of what appeared in connection with the case, but on the report of the inspector. We should not have said so much respecting this case, which in itself is soma what paltry, had it not been that we arej convinced that the chief defect in many of our schools is the want of discipline. We are concerned to see any committee take an extreme course which may have the effect of weakening the administration of discipline, and moreover which seems to us to be quite wrong on the facts of the Darticular case.