The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1874.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 1072, 13 July 1874, Page 3

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1874.

An impartial critic on reading 1 the report of the Government Inspector on the status of the Timaru School, and then making- himself acquainted with the views of the local School Committee upon it, would be apt to draw somewhat unfavorable conclusions as to the integrity of the report by the Inspectorj either that report is dishonest, or the drawer of it has been most reprehensibly careless m his treatment of facts. We should be sorry even to think that Mr Restell had been intentionally dishonest m the performance of a public duty, or that it was an avowed intention on his part so to frame a report on the Timaru school, as to bring that school into disrepute, and cause it to be lightly regarded by the public at large. We do not think so; but the report, leading- as it most untuistakeably does, to the worst of constructions being- placed upon it, we cannot exonerate Mr Restell from carelessness. For reasons best known to that gentleman, he has contented himself with giving the very barest outline of a report of the school. If even this faint epitome of the Inspector's ideas of the interior economy of the school had been correct, well and good, but it is not correct, and this general incorrectness coupled with a total disregard of explanatory circumstances, are ample grounds for our preferring a charge of carelessness. Carelessness, or rather an apparent studied neglect of the most obvious duties of an inspector is visible throughout the report, and ono would almost suppose from the brief arid hastily drawn document, that Mr Restell was doing his best not to make the public and the Board of Education cognisant of the real condition of the school, but that his object was^ to damn the school altogether. And endeavouring- to make believe that the teaching- staff is generally of too high a standard m comparison with the calibre of the pupils, he palpably insinuates that the school had better be placed m the ABC list of instruction, rather than its committee of management should be allowed to introduce into it a moderately high standard of education. In every possible way did the Inspector show the school m its worst light. In fact he went out of his way to bring about this desired result. Disobej'ing the orders or rather ignoring the expressed desire of the Board, he commenced the examination of the boys' school on a day anterior to that set apart by the Board, and on a day when invariably the attendance is lowest. But not content with this arbitrary display of pettj'-inspector-power m changing- the day on which to commence the examination of the school, he absolutely refused when the proper :dpy for examination came round, to examine those lads who then attended, but who were not presant the previous occasion. By this brilliant bit of finesse, Mr Restell was able to report that he had examined but 176 boy scholars, and not 200, whom it was his duty to have examined. A report so injurious, so very onesided, and so carelessly drawn, could not long pass unchallenged, and we are glad to see that the managing committee of the school has m a temperately worded document and ono collated with care, answered the Inspector, calling to their aid a report by the head master. The two papers on " the other side " will therefore be presented before the Board of Education, the members of which will have ample material before them to assign the true character to the report on the Timaru school, issued by its chief officer. If erring" at all the Committee has erred on the side of moderation. It might justifiably have used bolder and more pointed language thnn it has elected to use. In treating of the delightfully meagre statement by the official head examiner on the second classa statement which goes before the public as one not eminently satisfactory to that class, — the Committee, raking up past records, cMscoverd a very great improvement having been made by the individual scholars of the class m the interval between the two examinations heldrespectivelyin November, 1873, and June 1874. Mr Restell, however, though the improvement must have been patent to him as examiner, does not, m his June report, say n single word ot this improvement! Will the Board ask him why ? And will it also ask him to explain the very many discrepancies existing- between his and the Committee's report; and also the rea-

son of the total absence of " explanations," which assuredly must have heen known to the Inspector, and which, if appended to the June report of the school, would have raken from that report the spirit of unfairness which seems now to brood over it.