THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1926. SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19311, 26 April 1926, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1926. SCHOOL COMMITTEES.

With to-day there comes the people's one opportunity in the year to take a direct share in the Dominion's educational affairs. Householders are invited to meet for the election of school committees. They have other and less direct opportunities. Their electoral right as to school committees gives itself an indirect control over education boards, since the personnel of these is chosen by the suffrages of the committees. The boards, moreover, arc never out of reach of a strong public sentiment in their districts, should such a sentiment exist and be determined to make itself felt. The whole people chooses the membership of the House of Representatives, and to that House, even if he be a member of the Legislative Council, the Minister of Education has responsibilities: education largely involves finance, and the popular chamber consequently dominates the situation. These avenues of influence are only used to any great extent in times of unusual interest in special issues. "Government by the people" resolves itself, indeed, as a general rule, into electoral rather than administrative function, and is often not exercised with immediate impact upon affairs. In education, the annual meetings of householders present a unique iustance to the contrary, and the founders of this method of popular control of primary schools obviously meant it to be a really efficient instrument of local government. They looked to it to keep the public and the public school in vital contact and to foster a wide citizen interest in that part of the education system most widely concerned in the making of useful citizens.

In theory, the provision is excellent. In practice, it has been a disappointment. The average meeting of householders is dull. It is attended by a mere fraction of the electors: on occasion, it lapses for lack of attendance. Difficulty is met in getting competent committees. Often—there is nothing to be gained by blinking the fact—quite the wrong people are chosen, people whose intelligent interest in education is manifestly smaller than their desire for such notability as election to a school committee can bestow. To say this is not to disparage the qualifications and work of many excellent men and women serving on the committees ; but there is all too abundant evidence that householders, in a large measure, do not think or care enough to make the annual meeting an effective means of getting a committee even approximately ideal. Even where the annual meeting is largely attended, it is more often than not some side issue, having little or nothing to do with education, that accounts for the apparent revival of interest. A faction quarrel of the countryside, or a suburban dispute as to whether the general public shall have a right to use the school swimming bath, has been known to produce a big meeting, and its conduct has evidenced the participants' lack of education much more than their interest in it. The reason given for this palpable failure is the committees' restricted powers. They are no more than petty-cash committees, it is said, instructed to keep the premises usable and to endorse formally the decisions and appointments made by the education boards. This explanation would have more weight were there not so much indifference and apathy in local government generally. The school committee is not alone in the failure of its election and business to attract a keen and extensive public interest. The real reason lies in a defective appreciation of education. Wherever that defect exists, householders will neglect their electoral privilege and committees do their work in a pettycash spirit. In disproof of the argument that the palpable failure in many districts to get good meetings of householders and good committees is due to the limits put upon the committees' activity there is convincing evidence: some good meetings are held and some very excellent men arid women find in the school committee a field of fine public service. In these instances, the status of the schools has been lifted; they have become rallying centres of wholesome communitylife ; teaching staffs have been heartened and helped; and the localities' educational needs have been impressively voiced. When all that can be said about the restrictions on committees' powers has been - said, it remains true that committees are what their members make them, and do no more and no less than those members are personally qualified and ready to do. If there were adequate public appreciation of one aspect of this matter, amendment would certainly come : the progress of a community in intellectual and ethical life depends very largely on the maintenance of a close and living contact between its older and younger generations. Without that, new departures get no opportunity and effete ideas no impulse to change. A people cannot effectively advance by separate detachments ; it can do this only as a continuous column of related units on the march. Human life is a stream, not a mere scries of self-contained lakes. Especially in education, where the hope of advance lies in the children and the directing forces are i n the hands of the adults, it is vital to success that the closest possible connection be kept between the generations. A

wise recognition of this desideratum doubtless actuated tho founders of the school committee. Its abandoning would be calamitous. In practical working, central control in a Minister and a department is inevitable : the effective administration of a national scheme makes that imperative. But for the full achievement of educational advance the intelligent sympathy and aid of the whole community are essential. An opportunity for that is provided in the measure of local service that the school committee can undoubtedly render; and in the householders' meetings, where local educational progress can be reviewed, local needs be voiced, and the local administrators be chosen, there resides a potent factor of the common weal. It is a thousand pities that this opportunity is not everywhere used with full effect.