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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9112, 21 July 1888, Page 4

ALTHOUGH we differ in some important particulars from Mr. Cooper in his proposed method of reform in education, we very heartily commend the spirit he has shown in tabling a practical proposal for retrenching the enormous and unendurable extravagance of our education system. He truly says that " the immense expenditure upon education must sooner or later bring the whole system down ; and it was useless for them to say that they must educate their children as at present, for they could not do it unless some radical change were made in the expenditure." These are truthful words of warning, and we do not hesitate to say that if retrenchment is not permitted now we see within measurable distance the whole system thrown over on the hands of the people, to do the best they can with it out of local taxation. Mr. Cooper deserves commendation for Ids courage,because when it is so much the fashion to pander to ignorant prejudice it demands no ordinary

independence in any man to stand forward as an apostle of a cause so unpleasant yet so salutary as that of practical and specific retrenchment. We do not intend to rediscuss the proposals made by Mr. Copper. They embrace a contemplated saving of £75,000, which, though by no means all that could be saved without falling short of the duty of the State, would be a substantial relief of taxation, and would to some extent moderate the growing sense of indignation with which the great body of intelligent people contemplate this huge and wasteful extravagance. As is to be expected, the proposals met with resistance from certain members of the Board, who belong to that extensive circle of people who say, " Retrenchment everywhere but here." The effort to cut down the extravagance everywhere hi'the State —which had sprung up like mushroom growth under the baleful shade of the borrowing and " scattercash" policy—has been met at every corner by a fierce resistance. At every point it has been " retrenchment anywhere but here;" and under the influence in some places of greed, in others of a desire to pander to the mob, a spirit of selfishness as unpatriotic as it is indecent, has everywhere confronted reform. From the Speaker of the Assembly down to the humblest office in the State the self-same stubbornness in defending the extravagance that has been fostered in the days of the colony's madness, is exhibited ; and if it were not that the innocent and the honest would suffer with those who fight for the continuance of abuse, we would almost wish that the screwpress of taxation were put more tightly down. That the " Second Civil Service," as it is called, the whole army of the teaching body, their friends and connections, will fight against education extravagance being touched, is what everybody anticipated ; but one effect of that, if it is continued, will be that they will alienate public sympathy, and embitter public feeling in the same way as the whole world had come to frown at the Civil Service, which was the prelude to its doom. The "teaching guild " is now challenging the wrath of the public, and if in the insolence of power, or under unwise advice, it persists, it will suffer for it. The members of the Board are of course talking to the school committees and the teachers, but it is not improbable that the Boards themselves will require to be swept away in order to make classification and adjustment complete, and have retrenchment evenly and satisfactorily effected without being thwarted by the sinister influences that have too commonly dominated the counsels of the Boards of Education.