THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND PRIMA SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9013, 28 March 1888, Page 6

THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND PRIMA SCHOOLS.

A PERSONAL EXPLANATION. At a meeting of the Grammar School Board of Governor.-- yesterday, Colonel Haultain said he had received the following letter from the headmaster, which he asked permission to read :—

March 6, ISSS. Dear Colonel Haultain,— If I may so tar trespass upon your kindness, I would ask you 1 > say to the Board, and through it to the public, that I most emphatically disclaim the statement attributed to me, if the report in the Star of the 23rd be correct, by Mr. Aickin. (" . . The headmaster said in tins room that he could not expect to compete with the primary schools in the teaching of the lower forms. ' I'ne inverted commas are tiie Star s. l If Mr. Aickin was correctly reported, I must suppose him to have understood some remark of mine in a sense very different from that which it was intended to convey. Of course, officially, I have no cognisance of newspaper reports." Therefore, though it is hard tnat remarks affectim: my reputation should he not only made, but given to the public without my having an opportunity for reply, 1 have always kept silence. But when a statement which ]. certainly did not make is actually put into my mouth, 1 fear lest silence should seem to give consent; therefore I ask you to help me. Of course we are handicapped in competition with the primary schools; they have perhaps a hundred boys for our one from -whom to select, and there is every inducement to parents of able boys to send them to the primary schools as the cheapest way ot getting them ultimately into this, The examinations are designed to suit them, not us. As to " home advantages, they have plenty of boys from comfortable and even (though this is not an advantage) wealthy homes. I have said that the lower forms are a difficulty to us, but I gave the reason—that they are not well supplied with boys. 1 his difficulty is the effect, not the cause, of the poor supply. I have also said that we ought not to he troubled with quite rudimentary teaching. The same might be said of the primary schools were the usual age for entering them as high as even the lowest at which -we receive boys. I certainly have not said or thought that we are incapable of supplying the very best teaching, if only parents would be wise enough to send their boys to us early. — I am, kc., C. F. Bourse. Mr. Aickin* said he understood Mr. Bourne to say that it could not be expected that the Grammar School could compete with the primary schools in teaching the lower forms. He did not know what the other members understood, and asked for an expression of their opinions. What he understood the head-master to mean was that the primary schools being free, they could not in the Grammar School hope to compete with them in the lower classes, and that, he had no doubt, was what he meant, not that they were incapable of teaching elementary subjects in the Grammar School. The Chairman said he did nob recollect the matter. , , . Mr. Upton said that Mr. Bourne had ot late obtained excellent results, which weie a great credit to the Grammar School, and Mr. Bourne was entitled to refer to those results with pleasure and satisfaction. Mr. Aickin said there was no doubt the teaching was more thorough, and he was informed by a gentleman thoroughly competent of judging that there was a great improvement in the school. The Chairman' said it would be a grave fault if they were not able to give elementary education, and he was glad that Mr. Bourne had taken the matter up, but lor his own part he believed it was equal to anything that could be given in any primary or secondary tchool. Mr. Aickin expressed his satisfaction with the explanation, and the matter then dropped.