FROM THE MISSION SCHOOL TO THE UNIVERSITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24022, 22 January 1940, Page 17 (Supplement)

FROM THE MISSION SCHOOL TO THE UNIVERSITY

For more than 60 years education in the public schools of New Zealand has been free, secular and compulsory, and , the cost of the system to the taxpayer has been increased tenfold since the beginning of the present century, when it was estimated to be approximately £420,000. The administration of education to-day has been developed to a high degree of efficiency and the results obtained have been the admiration of many overseas authorities. As a result of the Education Act of 1 877 every child in the country was not only entitled to, but was expected to receive an

The University of New Zealand, which to-day comprises constituent colleges in each of the four centres was founded in 1870 under the New Zealand University Act of that year, and the first council was assembled in the following year. Prior to this, however, the University of Otago had been established in 1 869 by ordinance of the Otago Provincial Council. Formed into a body politic and corporate ” with the power of granting degrees in arts, law and medicine, the University of Otago was actually opened in 1871, and the distinction of founding the first institution

elementary education sufficient for all the ordinary requirements of life at no cost to its parents. From the outset the aim was to make the system embrace every family in New Zealand. The remoteness of many settlements and the difficulties of transport made this impossible for many years, but with the opening up of the country and the extension of education districts, there are to-day comparatively few children who have to rely on the correspondence schools which have been established of recent yeatf >

of its kind in New Zealand undoubtedly belongs to Otago, and the credit for it must go to the Otago Association in the scheme of which it was provided that one-eighth of the proceeds of all land sales in the new settlement should ; be set apart for “ religious and educational purposes.” Not : only in the matter of university training but in the sphere of education generally Otago gave a lead to the rest of the colony and laid the foundations of a system which to-day provides virtually free education, for those who merit it, from the kindergarten to the University. ■:i■? £ .