THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 17 April 1901, Page 8

THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

THE DEPARTMENT AND THE BOARDS. The education question, and j.articulaily that pha-e of it which refers to the relations c\Ui-ng between tlie department and the boards, wa-> refeircd to at some length at the banquet given to Dr Barclay at Waimate on Thursday evening. Tho Rgv. G. Baiclay, who said lie had been coiuiectej with education for 65 years, proposed tho toa-t of " Education/ coupled with the nam,-s of the Hon. W. C Walker and Mr IMtcaithlj. He said that they had not much icason to be ashamed of their education system. It cost something liks half a milion a year, with a population oi some 300,000 adults. They had about 150,000 O'l the K'hool rods, with an average attendance of 120,000, &o that the great bulk of th> children were getting some education. They were piomiscd greater aid, and he hoped that it would be given, especially in th-> dnection of secondary education. He could only wish that there was greater promptitude in fulfilling the'-e fair promise. Hi> one regret in connection with the education py«le»n was the exclusion of Scripture reidinsj from the schools, which was clue to tha want of uiifliunuty amongst the chuichep. II 5 complained that the important education district of South Canterbury was not repie«jented on tiie Education Commission. Ho denounced a^, insane the idea of abolishing education boarus. He hoped that the buggestion did not emanate from their distinguished visitor, the Minister for Education ; but if it did not, it could be traced t^ v source closely connected with the KduiHiou uc;i irimenf. The Hon. Mr Wnlker, in responding, paid that he would not inflict a long speech upon them at that late hour. But he would like lo dispel the muage created by the Rev. Mr Barclay, who had not f-tated that he believed all that he had paid. The complaint w ith reference to the delay in the matter of technical education would not hold good against tho Government. They had been desirou« of getting the measure passed, but it had had to be dropped becaupe of the opposition it met with Personally, he had logrcttcd tho delay very much, because he desired and believed it necessary that our y.iung pople should receive thp best equipment for the battle of life. They had now got a good bill, winch, v ith the regulations, w ou'd nvvfc sill tho requirement-. There seemed to be in the mind" of people v. ho ought to 'know better a suspicion that there was a covert desis-n to flout the boards in respect to the matter of technical instruction. Possibly this had auscn fiom the f~ot that tlie Government had kept t'fi2 inspection m their own handsi, but he considered it was roallv in the intcir^ts of the boards that iho Goiernnipnl should piovidc competent and up-to-date inspector?. That would bo done ia the interests of the boards as vvoll as m the intercuts of tho voting people who were to recono the instruction. The Government also desired to protect the country by scf-ing that it obtJhned full value fcr- its nM/iiey. He hoped that was not regarded as an infringement of th" prerogatives of the board-.; it iv.io riot intended ac such, but only a, a means of giving the bes» effect to the act. Then the rev. gentleman had said there was a rumour that some authority had contrived a pl'Ui by whicb to do a>'. ay with the education boards. He did not know who that authority could be. or to whom Mr Barclay l>ad 1 een point mg. but he did know that he was '-peaking his own mind and the mind of the Government, when ho said that there was no word of truth in the suggestion — /Anplause.) He know, also, that the time had come when the Government should place education upon a better footing, and if that \«ns looked upon as a menace to the boards i \p\\ t he must say ho absolute 1 y declined to have th<* proposal taken m i' at light It was manifest the prepent system operated very hardly as far as the teacher*, were concerned, and as far af the finances of t'le boards were concerned. For a r~itain number of years the Education Ad of 1877 had been regarded as a sort of fe f i'h, which could not be touched without committing crime, but he thought iiow that the Government proposed to moke alteration-. i'l the machinery of the art it would be a very ft°°d! thin?. He did not know that any human legis'ation should be regarded as unaHerable, and it was only to be expected that after so many years the act required amendment If he thought that anythiner the Government was proposing was likely to destroy the local interest which had been the mainstay of our educational system, he would be the last man to ad»o cate it. He could, however, assure them, as a Minister of the Crown, that ever since he had taken office he had been faced annually by the fact of the inability of certain education boards to keep up their proper payments under the present system. Anyone who studied the question even in a cursory way must come to the same conclusion, and the fact had been very deeply impressed upon his mind when, year after year, applications had been made to him by nearly every board in the country, and it had been shown that under the present system the boards could not keep their finances going If they would only consider the matter for a moment they would gee that what was quite possible for boards having a number of large schools w-?s not possible to boards that had only schools of the c'ass which the '"lthor boards admitted they lost money on. a-nd could only be maintained by means of the profits upon the grants to the large echools. It was the case that while the finances of the large boards might be sound from thenown point of view, tho finances of most of the boards of the colony were exceedingly weak, and that they had to protect their finances by penalising the teachers. Since his proposals had been before the country and talked of as actually coming into force, more than one board had reduced, under notice, the teachers' salaries because they absolutely conld not nay them under the prep&nt conditions. His idea waa that in place of its bemcr an aHack on the independence of the boards, the proposal to have a colonial scale of salaries — he was not talking about any particular scale, but a satisfactory scale that would hold all over tlie colony — would. in the first place, strengthen the hands of the boards exceedingly, because they would not have, as at present, to think about the ways and means, but would have the teachers' salaiies provided without any difficulty whatever, and the boards would be the medium, as at present, of appointing, dismissi'ne. and paying teachers, the only difference being that the money would come, so to °rieak, " earmarked, " and cveiy teache* upon the staff of a school would be entitled to tho same salary whether lie was (caching in Southland. C'antiibuiy, or Auckland; and tlicie would not be, a? at the preheat time, a difference in th.«

kind and quality of the teaching in the various educational districts of the colony. Was it a good thing, when boards that could afford to be particular as. to the class o£ teachers employed found reason to dismiss certain of it^ employees, that they should flock into a district where lower salaries were \ aid. because of the probability of their being accepted at lower rate" of pay? Still, he was not speaking onl> from a teacher's point of view but al«-o from, that of the board?. The boards would be s-av ed a great deal of the anxiety they now had eoncprning the protection o£ their finances, and the country -would be benefited, because education would be imparted by men of a higher average standard of intelligence and capacity than was now the case, taking the colony as a whole. From the teachers' point of view the question was one of pimple justice. The members, of tho teaching pro 'ess ion should h& fairly paid and reasonably treated. If education v. as of the great importance they all admitted it to be. surely those who were its high priestb should be paid decently for tho s-erviee-. they rendered the country. — (Applaupe ) He was suie we should have no i tally satisfacton' education system unless our teachers were fairly paid, and the matter must be looked at from ? colonial point of view. These were, shortly, the reasons why he earnestly hoped they wmiH be ablo to devise some change in the direction of instituting a colonial scale of salaries Ne\t, as to how it was to be done He should be ■very sorry indeed if South Canterbury as a whole fell the «ame slight as, apparently, tho Rev. Mr Baielay did; but he thought it must be rdmiltej that the lojnl commission would have been absolutely unwieldy if every ed'ic?t»on board had been represented upon it, inasmuch as there were some 13 in the colony. Obviouf-ly all the boards could not be represented upon it, but the Government had endeavoured to place upon it men who did know something of the subject, and <-(>, although they might be said nominally to represent only tho districts in nhch they lived, still he believed half of them at least v ere very well acquainted with the \> ay the question.'! affected district* other than their own. He tiusled the Rev. Mr Barclay would accept his assuiance that the selection of the commissioners was a matter that had been most carefully considered, and that every care had been taken a= far as possible to select as members tho3e who represented edu- i cational interests 1 up and down the country. Enough had now bffn said by him, he thought, to indicate his mind upon the subject, and as far as he was able he had tndeuvoured to dispel t^oso mirages which tho lev. gentleman had endeavoured to throw be foie their pye= 4_t any late, at that hour of the morning (nfr«-r 1 o'clock), he Ihouarht they would te^tn -v c-vcrsc hir.i for not tl'Q=pas ing longer upon their ilton'io!!. He was sorry such an important question had tome on so Inte in *-he evening, but still ho thought it v\as only lurht that he should endeavour to nviko himself understood concerning it.— (Appl-iuse.)

THE GAZETTF. WKLLINOTOX. April n. This week's (in/cfto contains an i-nnouiico-m»nt thht the King's a-sont La* br-n _;:\en to a large number of Lull-i pa^ceJ -l.wt - sfiioii. Koyal a&afnt has been givtn tv the Defence Act Amendment, whiles the Deceased Husbands.' "Hi other Mamaae Act and the Knsicu Act ha\e b^ow ivoncct. New iegulauon-3 hivp b'Tn {.azrtted miner the Jjuv Piactitumers Act, under which candidates for barn-tor* and for solicitors' law examination-, shall be pcimittpd to take the subjects proscribed for tbc=e examinations in two sections.