EDUCATION MATTERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12910, 5 July 1905, Page 6

EDUCATION MATTERS.

THE AUCKLAND TRAINING COLLEGE.

REFERENCES IN THE HOUSE.

[by TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

Wellington, Tuesday. Some points in connection with educational matters in the Auckland district were brought up in the. course of the adjourned debate on the setting up of the Education Committee this afternoon.

Mr. James Allen, in criticising the administration of the Department, said that the Education Committee for two years in succession had strongly recommended that provision should be mad© for the establishment of teachers' training colleges at Auckland and Wellington. Those, colleges, bowever, had not been established, . and tho blame for this must rest with the Minister. Mr. Seddon interrupted with a remark in respect to the boards.

Mr. Allen: The boards had nothing to do with it either in Auckland; or Wellington. The recommendation "was made, and you did not give effect to it. It is your fault that we have not got these colleges in Auckland and Wellington to-day. • Mr. Fowlds also spoke very strongly in regarcl to the failure of the Department to establish the training college at Auckland. Last year the Premier made a definite state'nent that lie _ accepted the recommendation of the Education Committee in its entirety, and that ho was prepared to find the money to put the proposal into effect. He (Mr. Fowlds) then looked upon the matter as settled, and he. expected that the college would be established at Auckland accordingly. "Imagine, then, my horror," ho continued, " when on inquiring at the office of the Auckland Board a month or two later I was informed that nothing had been d"r;t-." He was told that 110 vote had been granted by' Parliament, and that in the absence of such a vote no money was available for carrying 011 the work. "I do not know anything else that the Premier has done," added the member for Grey Lynn, ' which has given me a greater shock than his action in this matter, which I look upon as a distinct breach of faith. He mad© the distinot statement in the committee that he accepted the scheme and was prepared to find the money, and yet I found that the matter was blocked owing to 110 vote having been made by Parliament." The Board, he said, was thus blocked by the Premier, and lie explained the proposal to utilise the Wcllesleystroet school for the purpose of a training college and the objections raised to this course on the ground of the lack of other accommodation in the city for primary school purposes. Referring to technical education, he commended the work now being done by the director of technical education in Auckland.

Messrs. Lang and Massey spoke of the necessity for making better provision for the education of the children in the back blocks, and Mr. Massey cited the case of a district at Mercury Bay where, he said," there was no school at all.

Mr. McGowan said that in the principal centre at Meroury Bay there was one of the best schools in the colony. The Auckland Board, he said, had established schools wherever it was possible, but it was . impossible to provide for every small isolated district.

Mr. Bollard asked the Premier to explain why he had taken the control of the building grants out of the hands of the boards. Mr. Baume (chairman of the Education Committee during the last two years) defended the Premier from several of the charges made against the Department, but he also spoke in no measured terms of condemnation regarding the failure to provide the necessary money for the training college at Auckland. If, _ lie said; the Premier thought that the training college was necessary, it was his duty to provide the necessary funds. The Auckland Board, fearful lest the recommendation would not be carried out, proposed to start the work in a " wretchedly old' building" already used for primary school purposes, and which could ill be spared by the City Schools Committee. It was not right, he said, that the building should be used for the purpose proposed at all. - . The Premier, who commenced his reply shortly before eleven o'clook. denied that he was responsible for the delay in connection with the establishment of a training college at Auckland, and said that the difficulty there had been as to where the college should be situated.