The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1887.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7963, 6 September 1887, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1887.

In a speech recently delivered by Mr. Or. A. Marchant we remark that that gentleman greatly nnderestimated the oost of what he termed " Secondary Education " in New Zealand, justly condemned by him as extravagant. Mr. fcMarohant reckoned that cost at seventy thousand a year, whereas if under Secondary Education v■' iiolude, as Mr. Marchant evidently ii eluded, our University Colleges anrl U aiversities, the cost is much nearer one hwhdred and fifty ihousarid than seventy thousand a year. From .ffioial documents before us, on whose contents we have had previous occasion to comment, we can prove to the satisfaction (?) of the taxpayers and Mr. Marcbant that the above sum represents the actual expenditure on these institutions during the year 1886. In the official list, be it carefully noted, Secondary Eduoation does not include Canterbury College and some of its connected institutions ; it does not include Auckland University College ; it does not inolude either of our two Universities— that of Otago and that of New Zealand. Under Secondary Eduoation is included merely our High Schools, and suoh Colleges— -in our opinion absurdly so vailed— as Kelson and WeUiogton,

Now let as, .with the offioial figures staring us in the faoe as we write, seewhat the annual charge for the maintenance of these institutions is, taken altogether. The total net expenditure, deducting certain receipt balances, on our High Sohools, and so-called Colleges, daring, the year 1886, reached the sum of very nearly seventy-three thousand pounds, the gross expenditure being £79,187 185. 6d., or nearly eighty thousand a year on Seoondary Eduoation alone, taken in this, its technical and strictly offioial sense, to inolude only High Sohools and Colleges like Nelson and Wellington. But it oannot be too dearly understood that this annual cost of some eighty thousand does not inolude the following eduoational institutions, namely, the University of Otago, with its yearly expenditure— the items of whioh were examined in a recent article—of £80,434 (omitting shillings and pence) ; the University of New Zealand, with its annual expenditure of nearly fourteen thousand (£18,909 dnring i last year), on which, we shall, in due course, have some remarks to offer ; Canterbury College, with an expenditure of nearly twenty-eight thousand yearly (£27,721 last year) ; Auokland University College — quite a distinct institution from the Auckland College —£6,601 in 1886. We thus arrive at a total oost for the yearly maintenance of these last-named institutions for higher eduoation of upwards of £70,500. For our High Sohools, Grammar Schools, Colleges, University Colleges, and Universities, it thus appears we are at the present time inourring a yearly expenditure amounting to the trifling sum of £149,763 ; or within a very little, as we have stated, of one hundred and fifty thousand a year. - Yet some of our educational wiseacres have the effrontery to declare — and we may be pretty sure that they will, if returned as our representatives, be as good as their word — that this enormous sum is not only none too much, but not enough ! Let us now take the annual oost of Primary Education in the colony, as stated in the official reports for last year, and we find the following: — Total expenditure of Eduoation Boards, including balances in hand, &c, £483,232; of which no less than £280,117 was for salaries paid to teaohers; and a grant of £55,000 for school buildings. We find further, £5,573, in addition, expended on scholarships; £8,504 on just four Normal Sohools, viz., one in Auokland, one in Wellington, Christohurch, and Dunedin, with a total number of pupils on the books of these four schools of 143, making the oost of training very nearly £60 per annum for eaoh pupil ! Office expenses and salaries in connection with sohool commissioners, £1698 ; oost of leasing, advertising by ditto, £575 ; law costs, &0., ditto, £129 ; spent on surveys, fencing, &c, £987 by ditto, or a total expenditure on the working expenses of these sohool commissioners of £3384. On Native Schools, 76 in number, of which 64 only are fully organised, with a total number of children on the rolls in 1886 of 2346 and an average attendance of 1846, an annual expenditure of £14,860, no less than £10,705 being teaohers' salaries alone. In addition to this sum of upwards of fourteen thousand a year on these schools, there ia the cost of new school buildings, boarding sohool expenses, &c, amounts not given ; and included in the above annual sum, no less than £765 for the salary and travelling allowances of inspectors, &o. ; the sole inspector, to the best of our belief, being Mr. Pope, who, however, it is only right to add, we know to be one of the beat and ablest men who oould fill so responsible and onerous a post. Bnt the cry is, " Still they come 1 " Institution for Deaf Mutes, 41 in number, £8514, of whioh just £385 15s was payment made by parents* or a little over one.tenth the oostl Industrial sohools, containing already in this young colony of some half million of people, no fewer than 1566 children, of whom 1223 . are dependent for support on these sohools, a net expenditure of £16,411 per annum! If we have not long sinoe taken the taxpayer's breath away, we will ask him in oonolusion, to add up the above-named sums, and he will find that, on the offioial returns, whioh are not likely to err — as Colonel Trimble strangely stated in a late speech — on the side of excess, that the total expenditure on Primary Eduoation, under these separate heads, amounted, during last year, to the sum of £484,978, or not very far from half a million a year, when all other costs ate taken into account. Add to this the oost of seoondary and University education, already shown to amount to nearly one hundred and fifty thousand per annum, and we get the sum total of some £650,000— six hundred and fifty thousand a year spent by the State on the education of the truly fortunate' youth of this Colony of New Zealand ; or more than one pound per head on the population, men, women, and children 1 We commend this fact to the serious attention of every voter for Taranaki at the ensuing, election, and ask him to well weigh the remarks of Mr. Marchant—words to which every life-lon* advocate of -true National eduoation must have listened to with peculiar pleasure : — " He was a sincere friend of State eduoation ; and it was those who, like himself (Mr. Marchant), advocated a wise economy who were its ttue friends; not those who would bolster up tlie present extravagant- sys< tern at all costs and at all hazards.''