EDUCATION IN THE BACK-BLOCKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11936, 9 January 1901, Page 8

EDUCATION IN THE BACK-BLOCKS.

'I TO THE EDITOR. I Sin,—With your permission I wish, to lay L ! before your readers a curious state of affairs relative to the administration of education in this district. Since the opening of the Otngo Central railway to Eanfurly, two years ago, several efforts have been made by the Ranfurly people to obtain a school for the township. There are enough children in and near Ran- , furly to support a school; but a school at " Ranfurly would take away several children from each of the two schools—the Eweburn . and Waipiata Schools,—which at present I serve the district, leaving one or other, or perhaps both, of those schools without sufficient children to warrtnt their continuance. [ Eighteen months ago Inspector Goyen was i sent to report upon the matter, and as the at- , tendance at the Waipiata School was not good • at that time he recommended that that I school be mov.ed to a point about 60 chains from the Ranfurly railway station. This . would have suited the Ranfurly children and 1 the majority of the children at that time at- ' tending the Waipiata School, being to the disadvantage of only two children. However, the Ewoburn committee, fearing to lose some scholars, objected, and as the board was not satisfied about tho permanency of the Ranfurly residents the matter was hung up. Now, the chairman' of the Eweburn School Committee, I understand, gets up a petition in a hole-and-corner manner asking that the Eweburn School be moved one mile and a-quarter (!) nearer Ranfurly to a site which would be much further from Ranfurly than that recommended by Mr Goyen, and in response to that petition the board sends Messrs Harraway and Sim to report. Mr Harraway finds that the ! petitioners " practically ask to take the school | further away from-seventeen children for the j sake of bringing it nearer to eight." Accomj panying those two gentlemen was the board's ! secretary, Mr Pryde, and upon the suscepti- ; Ijilitics, of that official the chairman of the; ! Eweburn School Committee operates in a way, I shall describe presently, which was. more astute than creditable, and which has apparently had the desired effect. Some of the petitioners, and a few others who had not seen the petition but who had got wind of the commissioners' proposed visit, met them at Ranfurly. It was pointed out to the commissioners that the petition had been most discriminately presented for signature, and that many householders were not even aware of its existence. It was also suggested to them that the best way to fix the site for a school was by the vote of those interested. One gentleman even asked to be allowed to make a proposition taking the voice of the meeting on the matter, but Mr Harraway pointed out that the only fair vote would be a vote of the whole district, 'and it was not liis function to take that vote. A desultory conversation then ensued, in which the commissioners presumably managed to intuitively gaugo the rights and wrongs to be done by moving the Eweburn School. No other proposition was even brought before thorn; yet, in spite of the nature of the petition—in spite of the fact that it was in conflict with the recommendation made by Inspector.-Goyen, which recommendation the board treated with such lazy apathy 18 months ago,—we are astonished to find that the board, yitli a-violent haste which scarce leaves one time to protest, calls for tenders for the removal 'of the Eweburn School' to the point suggested by the petitioners. . , L ~ Sir, in the light of what transpired at the meeting and since, one cannot help feeing that ordinary fairplay has not prevailed. Ine fact that Mr Harraway permitted the chairman of the Eweburn School Committee to irrelevantly introduce Mr P. B. Fraser s name and to sfceak disparagingly of him, and that Mr Harraway himself even joined in the condemnation,. when it was obvious to anyone that tho objcct of the chairman of the school committee was to curry favour with the comraifsioners, and the further fact that Mr Pryde, the board's servant ('!), was allowed to decry Mr Eraser, and was the chief offender and was electioneering against him, in fact, in the presence of two other members of the board, seems to me to be a monstrous, state of affairs, and calculated to sap one s confidence in the fairness of the report that such a commission might make to the board.—l atn, etCi John Law, ivs. Ranfurly, JaAuary 2. [As our correspondent makes statements reflecting upon the secretary of the Education Board, who, as a publio official, is not at liberty to defend himself through the. columns of tho press, we submitted his. letter to the chairman and secretary of the board before 'publication. We are informed by them that Mr Law does not represent the case fairly. In the first place, they say that Mr Law is not a householder in either Ranfurly or feweI burn, and that he forced himself. upon the meeting .against the wishes of some of the people who were in attendance, as lie had plainly no right to be present. At the meeting called to'.eonsider the matter, when it was proposed to shift the Waipiata School nearer Ranfurly, it was shown that the attendance at the school was very low, and it was a matter of consideration by the board whether the sqhool should be.closed or shifted. Since then the attendance has increased very much, and the school is now'in a fairly prosperous state. The petition for the removal of the Eweburn School to a site nearer Ranfurly originated with tho Eweburn School Committee. The committee of the board who visited the district satisfied themselves that the petition to removo the Eweburn School to a site nearer Ranfurly was "a very proper one, and should bo agreed to. The board has considered this matter, and adopted the recommendation. With reference to Mr Law's statement about the secretary, the chairman of the board assures us that the secretary did not in any way influence the committee in their decision on the matter, and,' in fact,- made no attempt to influence them. The chairman .further states , that he has no recollection at all of the secretary making any remarks derogatory to Mr P. B. Eraser.—Ed. O.D.T.]