EDUCATION BOARD AFFAIRS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11797, 28 July 1900, Page 8

EDUCATION BOARD AFFAIRS.

TO THS EDITOR.

Sik, —Referring to the board's last meeting to the report of the '' select committee signed Henry Harraway, Donald Borrie, and Alex. ,Kyle, also to Mr Donald Borrie's false and slanderous attack on me, delivered when he knew my mouth was closed and had no right of reply, and also to my letter to the district high school committees, I have, after consideration, come to the conclusion that I owe it to the audiences I addressed and to myself simply as a reputable colonist, to giye a full answer to the attacks made on me, in order that the public may know the reason why, "when a man is serving the cause of education to the best of' his ability, he is denounced as a calumniator. Accordingly, I am making arrangements to answer Mr Donald Borrie, chairman of the Waitaki High Schools, at his own door. The good people of Oamaru have heard me before, and I think, until better informed, they will hardly yet credit that it has fallen to the lot of Mr Donald Borrie to unmask a villain. I intend to deliver addresses at Oamaru, Palmerston, Port Chalmers, Milton, Lawrence, Balclutha, and,' later on, afc other centres of the province-. The tactics employed at last meeting are not going to crush me; and although I have at present almost single-handed under-, taken a tolerably heavy task, I shall not cease my efforts'till I get the people to petition for the ■appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the conduct of its affairs by the Otago Education Board, and into the the truthfulness of its official information; and before any ceurt or committee that Parliament may set up I am prepared to appear in support of any allegations I have made or may bring forward. Some effort.ought to be made to find out why this Education Board so largely fails of its functions, and, notwithstanding the many able and devoted men who have sat at the table, is, with too brief intervals, so often the humiliation and scandal ofthe province.—I am, etc.,

P. B. Fraser.

Lovell's Flat,: July 26.