CORRESPONDENCE.

Colonist, Volume XXXIV, Issue 6043, 23 February 1891, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE.

fro tha Editor of the Colonist. -_ Sib,— The election of members for the Education Board is near at hand, the nominations have been sent in, and I and many others are sorry. to see that Mr Phillips, the ohampion of the country and aided sohools, is last ir stead of first. The Town Committee have .also nominated two fresh candidates. The town can now, as the Board is at present constituted, command almost any money it asks for. For instance, £1500 for a sohool site, £1800 has already been voted for a building, next will came the extras for embellishments, furniture, eto, amounting to hundreds of pounds, and all out of the Board's funds. Mr Editor, there is a deal of talk of our free and compulsory Education Act ; the above ia the free side of it, now for the compulsory. If out-settlers want their children educated they apply to the Board, who tell them they must acquire a site, convey it to the Board, and find half the money to build a sohool, and assist to pay the teacher. At the same time, of these struggling settlers not one in a hundred have proper buildings or accommodation to carry on their business, let it be farming, dairying, or what not, nor one in ten sufficient and proper house accommodation for their famiUes; yet they are called upon and compelled to present this property to tlie Board or their children can get no education. Mr Phillips has been a constant and persistent advocate of these out lying schools, the number of which is nearly one-third of the whole, claiming for their Committees the rights and privileges accorded to the other School Committess, among which is the election of members for the Board Now, if they had had that right, Mr Phillips would undoubtedly have outnumbered all others in votes. It is to be hoped that all country Committees will plump for Mr Phillips, for though it may not at present affect them, yet their children as they grow up must go back into the wilds, and their c v '". d _ ' ren will want schooling ; theref o- j 'v'y* they wfll assist their children -nd'ohildreiVq children by voting for wh ol b£eto £ the neit liberal man on ', ne Boardi Yours, ifcc, <?OHS Skilto-*?.