CURRENT TOPICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7930, 13 October 1911, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS

THE NEW BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM Dean Wakefield's appointment to tfie See of Birmingham will give wide satisfaction (says tho " Westminster Gazette"). Ko is a man of great energy and a good Liberal. “I. believe," be once said, “ the Liberal party • is the party , of the poor, and it is with the poor that 1, as a minister of Christ, have my chief concern. That is why i am and shall always remain a Liberal.'’ The now bishop is an Irishman, and received an education in Paris, Bonn, and Tonbridge, that was fairly entitled to be called cosmopolitan. In Paris he was a fellow pupil of the ill-fated Prince Imperial. His French and German studies have stood him in good stead, enabling him frequently to preach in the French churches in London and to give addresses in German at the Luther festivals. While in Germany he saw something of the Franco-German war, and took his earliest lessons in sympathy with tho unfortunate by helping to tend tho sick soldiers in the hospitals. LESSONS FROM ABROAD. By the TJlimaroa there returned to Dunedin on Tuesday Mr William Davidson, tho head-master of the Mornington public school,, after eight months’ furlough. Asked how primary education in New Zealand compared with that of the countries he had visited, Mr Davidson replied : —“Very favourably indeed. Tho fairest and most satisfactory comparison, however, is to place our system alongside those in operation in tho Australian Commonwealth. Looked at from this point of view, I should say: 1. All classes of people in New Zealand take a keener and more intelligent interest in their public schools and regard them with greater favour than is the case in any State of tho Commonwealth. 2. The minimum qualification demanded for entrance to the teaching profession is higher with us than in any of the Australian States. 3, Our teaching staff, especially in schools from thirty-sis to eighty in average attendance, and as regards male assistants In large schools, is much more liberal than that allowed in Australia. 4. Our salaries are equal to those paid in any of the States. 5. Better provision is made in New Zealand for the training and education of teachers than in any Australian State. 6. Wo have a more satisfactory superannuation scheme than that provided in any part of Australia. Our chief defects ore: 1. The unequal areas of education districts and the reluctance of boards in tho larger districts' to. appoint .teachers from outside

their own areas. This has prevented many of r«r most capable and deserving men a;/ women from getting the x iro " motion they have earned. 2. Inadequate equipment so far as all kinds of teaching appliances aro concerned. The remedy is; 1. (a) To divide the Dominion into four education districts, the boundaries of which should be coterminous with the four university and training college districts; or (b) io reduce the areas of the present largo districts and increase their number. 1 prefer the former. 2. The adoption of this reform would enable tho Minister of Education to formulate a satisfactory system of appointment and promotion of teachers. 3. To introduce a uniform scale of salaries for inspectors. 4. To adopt a system of subsidising amounts of money, raised locally, for the purpose of properly equipping our schools. A local education rate would not. I am afraid, bo tolerated.