The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888. RETRENCHMENT IN EDUCATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1694, 4 February 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888. RETRENCHMENT IN EDUCATION.

Retrenchment has been set on foot by the South Canterbury Board of Education. They have found that in consequence of the action of Parliament, in reducing the amount annually granted to them to carry on education in this district, retrenchment is necessary. Their income has been lessened by £I6OO a year and it is necessary for them to live within their diminished resources. This retrenchment they have effected in an intelligent and praiseworthy manner. The tendency of the present age is to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and to depart from this rule, or suggest any means for the more even distribution of wealth, is a heresy which orthodox believers in the established class doctrine punish in the stealthy secret way peculiar to Nihilism. The committee appointed by the South Canterbury Education Board, under the enlightened guidance of the Eev. George Barclay, have however, taken a humane view of the subject. Instead of reducing the salaries of the teachers all round, which is the rule when the work of retrenchment is placed in less humane hands, they have allowed salaries under £l5O a year to remain as at present. Salaries over that sum and under £2OO will be reduced by 6 per cent; £2OO to £250, 8 per cent; £250 to £3OO, 10 per cent, and all salaries over that amount 12 per cent. It would, we think, be impossible to deal with the subject more fairly or more honestly, for there cannot be the least doubt that the high-salaried teachers can afford the reduction better than the lower grades could. It would not be easy for any teacher to maintain himself and his family in a manner befitting his position and education at much less than £l3O or £l5O a year, but teachers who receive salaries over those amounts stand in no danger of being deprived of any necessaries of life by the proposed reductions. The Committee have evidently kept in view “ a maximum of saving with a minimum of hardship,” and we heartily congratulate them on the result of their labors. While entirely approving of the way the Committee have done their work, we cannot at all endorse the action of Parliament in rendering the reductions necessary. We do not at all say that teachers were hitherto too well paid, and we think that most people will agree that £3OO a year is not too high a salary for men who have taken University degrees. Their education is as liberal as the education of doctors and lawyers, yet the latter classes make much more out of their time than teachers do. Wa do not therefore think that the salaries of teachers were so high as to allow of retrenchment, but tbe necessity for it was forced 55 fcbe Board of Education, owing to the action of Parliament, and consequently they could not help it. What we say is that the reductions made are as fair and reasonable as they possibly could be, and that th« Committee deserve

credit for the intelligent manner in which they performed their share of the work. .It is most remarkable that all the retrenchment has taken place in the primary schools, while the high schools and colleges have not been touched. During the two last elections the people everywhere expressed themselves most decidedly in favor of retrenchment in higher education, while they manifested a determination to resist any interference with the primary schools. The present Government profess to be carrying out the will of the people. They say they have been placed in power for the purpose of carrying out retrenchment; that the people want retrenchment, and that they mean to legislate in accordance with the wishes of the majority. Here is one point on which they are not acting in accordance with the popular will. The people did not express any desire to reduce in any way the status of the primary schools, while they showed an unmistakeable determination to reduce expenditure on higher education. Thus, instead of carrying out the wishes of the people, the present Government have done exactly the reverse with regard to education. We feel confident this will be remembered at the next general election.

INCIDENTAL EXPENSES,

Undee the retrenchment scheme adopted by the South Canterbury Board of Education, the incidental expenses allowed to' School Committees is to be cut down by one-half —that is, schools which have hitherto received £2O a year will now only receive £lO, and so on. This will not affect country schools so much as town schools. Many of the country schools have very substantial balances to their credit, and, besides, their wants are small compared with the town schools. For instance, the Texnuka School Committee will find it difficult to carry on at all when its allowance is reduced to one-half. They get now, we believe, £6O a year, out of which they pay the janitor £4O a year. It their allowance is reduced to £3O a year it means that they must dismiss the janitor altogether, and try to get the work done for half the money. Doubtless other School Committees will find themselves in a* equally uncomfortable position, and perhaps the end of it all will be that, as in the olden days, the children and teachers will have to turn to and do the work of the janitor themselves. Retrenchment is very nice until people begin to put it in practice.