THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2416, 28 June 1900, Page 9

THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOLS.

THE ACTION OF THE EDUCATION I BOARD. | The following is a copy of a letter sent j ' to the Minister of Education by the P»ev. P. B-. Fraser, a member of the Otago Education | Board, which will be read with sonic in- ; terest: — ; To the Hon. Mr Walker, Minister of Education. Sir, — Referring to my telegram to you, dated STune 6, respectfully requesting you to delay your sanction to the proposals of tho lago Board of Education to increase the district iiigh school fees, contained in letter" dated May 21, I desire to thank you for the courtesy of your reply: thai you would delay action as requested. Though I am a member of the ; board, and paid diligent attention to its proceedings, I was entirely unaware of the existence of such a letter until I happened to write for copies of all correspondence with your department. I now beg to direct your attention to the misleading nature of that communication, and to the inaccuracies therein, all of which were fitted, no doubt unintentionally, to completely mislead you in this important matter, and to inflict an irreparable injury and wrong on the country chilclren of Otago. I mote,, tho- following three points: — (1) That "over £1.000 per annum" are paid in the district high schools of Otago for the, teaching of '' extra subjects." (2) I note the comparison of cost of secondary education at Dunedin and Oamaru wifh that of the district high schools.. 5(8) I shall refer to the statement that, as the parents in Dunedin and Oamaru pay " about £10 " in fees, the country settlers should pay snore by 150 per cent, than they do for the measure of secondary education provided in tHe district high schools. First, as to the statement that the board is at present paying over £1000 for the extra subjects in the district high schools more than ■would be paid if these were " ordinary " - schools. To begin with, the comparison is founded on a fallacy, unworthy of an Education Board, because the schools compared are incomparable, for there ars no " ordinary " schools of the same size as the district high schools, which have an attendance of from 30 to 40 pupils that have passed the Sixth Stan- ; dard. In an " ordinary " school, tho board j cannot shut its door against pupils thab have \ ■passed the Sixth Standard and arc under the i age of 16. The extra pupils in the district I •bigh schools are mostly of this class; all have ! passed the Sixth Standard, though a few of .the most senior are over 16 years of age. And since the board draws a capitation on these ' pupils of £3 15s, surely it is to be presumed "that even, in an " ordinary '' school the teaching of such advanced pupils, both as to educa- j Won and age, would be more costly than the i Reaching of children under the Sixth Standard j *>r in Standard I. If these 30 to 40 pupils in j leach of the district high schools were being i jtaught at a greater cost thr.n pupils in an ! ordinary" school, though the said 30 or 40 Shad not themselves passed the " ordinary " standards— that is, Ito Vl,— the comparison -would .have been valid; but everyone knows .that it is more costly to toach children of 12 to 16 years of age that have passed Standard VI, ,-whether they are in a so-called district high iscnool or not. Now, the board has no " ordinary schools with which to compare the die- i Sttct high schools, because it has no "ordinary " I 5 Snn x 1 2* , ftvera S e attendance of ! •irom 220 to 250 -having 30 to 40 pupils in j SSgeoflwice who have passed Standard VI, for '

whom it draws capitation, and ought, therefore, to provide some sort of advanced education adequate to the years and calibre of the pupils. Plainly, the ages and standard of education in the district high schools are greatly higher than those of an '" ordinary " school of tho same size; hence the same number of pupils of like age and intellectual capacity would cost more than the average expense of " ordinary " pupils, whether they belonged to an " ordinary" or to a district high school. The comparison is not the superficial one merely of numbers, but of the number of subjects, of their difficulty, and of the number of classes taught. If the work and requisite intellectual calibre of the higher staff of the district high school be compared with the work and needful intellectual calibre of men whose salaries in much larger " ordinary "• schools are equal to or greater than those of the higher staff of a district high school, the comparison will be all in favour of what is needful in the case of the staff of a district high school. Here, for instance, is a large Dunedin school, where, although there is an average attendance of over 600, there is an X class of only 11 pupils, corresponding to the 30 or 40 X class pupils in a district high school having only 250 pupils. A few hundred pupils more or less in the junior departments of a city school do not add greatly or proportionately to the work or responsibility of the head teacher ond.tho higher staff; but a district high school, besides having all the classes and subjects of an " ordinary " school, has, in addition, five or six other advanced subjects, and from Id to 16 more classes of advanced work. The salaries of the higher teachers in the city school referred to amount to £735, and those of the district high school higher staff, even allowing the £85 added for an extra assistant, amount to £740. The salaries of the higher teachers of another city school with 12 in class X amount to £785. I submit that the principle of making merely the numbers attending a school the sole criterion of the importance of a staff and their scale of payment is most fallacious, and likely to prove disastrous to all education in the country. The marvel is how the staff of a district high school accomplish the work they do, and that they successfully compete with the Otago high schools, bo splendidly equipped as they are. These high schools with which our district high schools compete cost thousands of pounds for their teaching staff, and average (parliamentary return 1599-) 12 pupils to each member of the staff. The comparison drawn between our district high schools and other

" ordinary " schools merely on the score of numbers is therefore misleading and most unjust; find I have referred to it at this length owing to its importance to country education, because it is the ground of the whole attack on the cost and the salaries of the district high schools, and of the smaller schools of the province.

The case against the letter sent to yoii is greatly increased in force whe±i it is pointed out that the alleged facts on which the fallacious argument adduced in it is based are themselves wholly mis-stated and misleading. The statement that at present the district high schools ' cost the board " over £1000 " is designed to tell you, as Minister of Education, that the estimated extra cost of these schools, •based on attendance last available, and on the conditions and regulations known' to be in force for the current year, amounts to " over £1000." j>To other inference could be drawn from the statement. When I got a copy of the letter in question, I at once asked for details of the £1000, and Mr Pryde, the board's secretary, sent me a return showing extra cost amounting to £1061. As the return contained the s\im of £140 — the cost of a school disrated three months agO) — and was otherwise inaccurate, I asked fox a correct zetjirn^ but w-s informed that the

one sent was " correct," — " practically correct." I have since, in answer to further inquiry, received another return, totally at variance .with the first, and no less misleading. I mention this because it tends to show the difficulty of making the comparison, and how it is probable that the members of the board ha,ve been misled. Making an investigation, I find the gross ' extra " salaries paid to the teachers for the current year, based on attendance of last quarter, and applying the board's regulations and arrangements for the current year, to be: — Milton: Head teacher, £85; matron, nil; first assistant, £40; extra teacher, £85; total, £206. Lawrence: Head teacher, £85; matron, nil; first assistant, £40 ; extra teacher, £85 ; total, £210. Palmerston : Head teacher, £85 ; matron, nil ; first assistant, £40 ; extra teacher, £85 ; total, £210. Balclutha: Head teacher, £85; matron, nil; first assistant, nil; extra teacher, £85; total, £170. Equal to £796; this against Mr Pryde' s £1061. But, by the new regulations, the board has confiscated the fees formerly paid as salary to the staff, I find that for five years past these fees average £153 per annum; and, as the board has resolved to see them collected in advance, the fees will probably total £200. This, deducted from £796, leaves £596. There is yet another saving effected by the board consequent on its establishing district high schools, and that is the difference in cost of scholarship-holders attending- the district high schools, and those going to Dunedin, amounting to £20 per scholar. For five years past, by the four schools now existing, the board has saved £720, an average of £144 per annum. Deducting this from £596, we have just £452 aa the net extra cost of the four schools, or £113 each. Thi3 is surely very different from the £1061, stated by the secretary to the great detriment of the district high schools, and, it might be, to the irretrievable injury of country education.

There is another fact that should have been mentioned to you, as, from the secretary's letter, one is apt to gather that the district high schools are, as a whole, very costly. Taking the whole attendance of all standards at the district high schools, each pupil cost in the past year £4 ss, against the capitation earned of £3 15s ; or just 15s per pupil more than what was earned. Moreover, if we take an actual case, that of Milton, calculated on the basis of last quarter's attendance, and under regulations and reductions for the current year, we have : —

Revenue: Capitation on 227 by £3|, equals £851 ss; fees of 25 pupils at average under, the old scale of 25s per annum, equals £31 -ss; saving on one scholarship holder, £20; — total, £902 10s.

Expenditure: Rector, £340; matron, £y.5; first assistant, £200 ; three pupil teachers, £75 ; extra teacher, £85; committee allowance, £40; —total, £855.

This shows that on the basis of last quarter's attendance, and iinder new regulations and reductions, without taking in the amount of the proposed increased fees, Milton is to the good by £47 10s. If the same holds good of the other schools, then, taking the gioss revenue of the schools and gross expenditure, the board will be in pocket by nearly £200 per annum. 2. Referring now to the comparison drawn between " tho measure of secondary education " at Dunedin and Oamaru and that of country districts, and the inference that country settlers should pay 150 per cent, more than before, I bring before your notice some startling facts forgotten by the writer of the board's letter. Let a comparison be drawn between what the State does for secondary education in Oamaru and Dunedin and what it expends on all other parts of this province. The Otago High Schoola in Dunedin — per parliamentary return, 1890 — show a groaa revenue of £6024. Of this sum £2837 are from state endowments,, »nd A £2420

! from fees, of which the Otago Board of Educa- ] tion appears io pay £350. At the time of that < return the boys' school had 166 pupils, and the girls' 111, or 277 in all. The gross revenue -1 divided by 277 gives a cost of £21 per pupil. I Deducting the fees, the annual cost to the State j is oCll per pupil, and as a proportion of these I pupils have never passed Standard VI before 1 entry, the real cost of pupils' equal in age and j calibre to those in our district high schools is very much more. Moreover, there is a staff j foi both schools of 22, giving an average to j each member of the staff of just 12 pupils. Let j it be borne in mind that the pupils attending these splendidly equipped schools compete for the scholarships of the Otago Board with the pupils attending the district high and other primary schools throughout the province. The salaries of the staff for these 277 pupils, some of whom have not passed Standard VI, amount to £4255. Then take Oamaru — i.e., the Waitaki High Schools : Revemie, £2377 ; fees only £717. Boys 64, girls 35, say, 100. Here the cost is £23 per pupil, and, less the fees, the cost to the State is £16 per pupil. A parliamentary return says that 27 of the above pupils had not passed Standard IV before entry. There is a staff of 10, giving an average of 10 pupils to each teacher. And let this be borne in mind, that a prospectus of this splendid boys' school says : '' Boys are eligible for the Otago Education Board's juniob scholarship, and special pains will be taken to prepare them for that examination." Children in all our primary schools throughout are thvis pitted against the children of these iDublic State-endowed institutions, so splendidly staffed and equipped; and the' Otago Education Board, the natural guardians of the educational interests of Otago children, have only only one policy of progress to suggest on their behalf — to increase the cost of secondary education to country children by 150 per cent., or even to close the district high schools, as has been done with one and attempted with Another, thus crippling all. "To sura up this comparison, secondary education at Dunedin and Oamaru, and within the watershed of these schools, costs a gross sum of £8401 per annum, of which the State pays, including fees amounting to £300 from the Otago .Education Board for scholarship holders, £4807, or about £12 per head for pupils, some of whom oiight to be attending a city " ordinary" school at a cost to the Stale of £2 15s. The secondary education of 377 pupils in these favoured parts therefore costs £8401, of which the State pays .61807, or £12 per pupil, while in the whole province outside of these centres, about £450 for 130 pupils, or £3 10s, is the State's contribution for secondary education or " extra subjects." It may be added that if the State made the rail free to all children attending district high schools — as it might well do both for them and the high schools — the numbers attending would be greatly increased with little or no additional cost for teaching. 3. Lastly, as to the extraordinary statement, inexcusable as coming from the Otago Education office, that, for the splendid equipment of the Waitaki High Schools, the parents pay about "£lO -in fees-," whence it is inferred that country settlers should have the cost of their " measure of education " increased 150 per cent., the fact is, that the fees for pupils are just £4 10s per annum in the Waitaki High Schools. The extraordinary nature of the document sent you, which, in the, circumstances, should have erred rather in moderation than in exaggeration and distortion, and the vital importance of this subject to the well-being of the struggling and ingenuous youth of provincial Otago, are my excuse for the length of this memorandum. It is possible, in the eireumgt&nces of its preparation, that some correcting 1 factors may. be applied to some of. my figures:

but the main contention will remain unshaken— that a more misleading and ungenerous, and indeed cruel, document was never sent out of any education office in oiir land.

Hoping that my statement of the case for secondary education in the country districts of the Province of Otago may result in more attention being devoted to the subject,, and respectfully offering this document to your consideration. — I am, etc.,

P. B. Fbaseb, M.A., Member of Otago Education Board. Lovell'cs .Flat, June 18, 1900.

Tho late Mr Francis Grey Smith, Melbourne, late general manager of the Bank of Australasia, left real estate valued at £4080, and personalty valued at £18,163, all of which goes to his widow and children.

Pending the conversion of the Calliope Dock into an Admiralty workshop, the Auckland Harbour Board has had placed before it a new method of turning an honest penny out of this commodious enclosure. Two Aucklanders have offered £7 per week rent for the use of the dock, in which they propose to exhibit a live whale. In their letter to the board, they naively added that the whale had not yet been caught, but that they anticipated no difficulty on this score. Several members seemed to think the idea a capital one, and Mr J. H. Witheford, the chairman', .expressed the opinion that the capture and exhibition of a live whale in the dock would be as good an advertisement for New Zealand as the catching of Boers was for the soldiers in South Africa. However, the board decided to charge £5 per day for seven clays, and to stipulate for a bond against damage to their property.