The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7377, 21 May 1887, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY.

In previous articles on the expenditure upon' Primary - Education in the Taranaki District, attention was called to .three items, out of tbe total number', in which it was contended a considerable reduction was perfectly practicable ; theße three items being the salary of the Board's Secretary and of the Board's Inspector, and the members' travelling expenses. We will now proceed to examine the next item, viz., the sum of £5,600 set down in the Board's estimates for the ourrent year as Teachers' Salaries and allowances. It appears that the present number of primary schools open in the Taraiiaki Eduoation District is 85, with an average attendance of 63 pupils at each of these schools. The total number of teachers in the district connected with these 85 sohools is 64. Of tbis number §6/ are olassiQed —by the Eduoation Board be it noted —as Head Teatfiers; 10 as Assistant Teaohers; 19 as Pupil Teachers. It thus appears that, inclusive of pupil teachers, the average yearly salary of each teacher amounts to between £85 and £86. The highest salary—-re-ceived by one bead gteaoher only,'

is about £400^ year, inclusive of the use of a residence rent free. The lowest annual stipend to a head teaoher is under £70, without a residence. We believe more than ono head teachership, at the latter salary, is held by a member of that sex which is as a rule more favorably known than the opposite for its patient, plodding, painstaking rpepseveranoe under adverse piroumstanp.e. All honour be 'given to more than one of these women teaohers of our poor, isolated, and struggling schools I "With certain exceptions it is precisely these small, isolated, and struggling sohools, taught by teachers on the above scanty pay, whioh are the main sources of trouble and oost to the Education Board ; oi perplexity to the Inspector ; of profound despondenoy to the luckless teacher ; of irritation and worry to the School Committees in oharge of them. All this trouble, annoyance, and expense are often entirely out of proportion to the benefits conferred upon the few children in attendance. In saying this, we have not the slightest wish to oast reproach upon the teaohers in oonneotion with these forlorn hopes. The evil— and it is, we contend, a most serious cvil — has arisen and is still arising, in no small measure, from the conditions of the scanty and widely-scattered population in some of the country districts. But, making the largest allowance foi these conditions, and fully admitting that cases have arisen, and may again arise, when & poor and scantil j inhabited district is precisely that ia whioh a school is needed, it may nevertheless be safely maintained, bj anyone experienced in the matter, that too frequently, and sometimes from motives not the most praiseworthy, these sohools have been planted in localities where there was nc necessity for them ; or where, if the necessity originally existed, it has from a variety of causes, long ceased to exist ; where there is no. longer anj reasonable prospect of corresponding value for the expenditure in time, labour, and money. It would be easj to give examples ; but. examples will ooour to anyone familiar with thu district. The closing of some of these sohools would be a considerable pecuniary saving', to the Education Board — a matter surely of weight in these times— and would also be a real benefit to the children attending, for ..these children could then be sent — in certain oases by' railwaj — to.Jarger, better disciplined, better taught, and in every way, more effective sohools in the neighbourhood, Moreover, these higher-class schools would thus have larger funds ai disposal than are now available even for neoessary purposes. That the Taranaki Education Board will in this, and in other respeots, begin before long to follow the laudable example of Education Boards in some places in the colony may, perhaps, be too much to expect under existing conditions. That the School Committees, whioh, together with these small and weak schools, are being every year, we observe, alarmingly inoreased in number, will have either the wisdom or the public spirit to initiate this or any other radical reform is, we fear, hopeless. But that this and like radioal reforms will, before many years, be forced upon these bodies, by the severe pressure of circumstances, among these, emphatically, the ever-growing financial difficulty with which our Public Bodies are every one, from the House of Representatives down to Education Boards and School Oommitcees, afflicted, there can, we think, be no reasonable doubt ; except indeed it be among those peculiar individuals who may be generally taken as the average of our representative men in this " prosperous and enlightened colony."