Corregpoifflence*

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1419, 8 April 1879, Page 3

Corregpoifflence*

OPIHI SCHOOL. TO THE EDITOR OP THB TIMAEU HEBAtD. Sib, — I cannot nllow the remarks in your issue of last Thursday, in referenco to the r Opihi School, to pass without reply, as they aro most unjuet to the Committee and partial to the Board nf Education. You fay that "Mr Howell wa9 deputed to select a site, but the one he chose did not meet with tho appro- 5 *ation of tbo Local Committee, and they recommended a more centrnl one." Thi» is j nil nonsense. Soon after tho district was formed, the Committee were invited by the Board of Education, through their Secretary, Mr Hammond, to select a site. I The. Committee did bo, and Mr Hammond came up to see it. Three members of the Committee accompanied him to the spot, and he fully approved of it, and promised to report favorably to the Board at their next meeting. • Of course wo thought it would bo adopted * as a matter of course, or, at any rate that, if the Board objected to our pile, they would t.ll us the reuaon. They did neither the one nor the- other, and we had to learn through your paper that Mr Uowell had been appointed to settle the *ite. Mr Howell went, without taking the slightest notice of the Committee, and fixed on one of the bleakest and most miserable plucoj in the district. Even then the Committee were not informed of what had been done; I presume because the Board were too much ashamed of their duplicity. But the secret leaked out, and a special meeting of the Committee was called at onco, and a resolution passed that the Chairman should write to the Board, strongly urging the adoption of tho site firs'; choien. This was done, snrt the following rsply was received from the Board : — 11 To the Chairman of tho Opihi School Committee. " Sir, — I have the honor, by direction of the Board, to acknowledge tho receipt of your letter of January 28lh, and, in reply, to inform you that, in deference to tho strong wishes of the Committee, tho Chairman of the Board has decided to revert to the old site selected by the Committee. " I have the honor to be, " Your obedient servant, " H. W. Hammomd, " Secretary." OF caurio, we thought the matter all right again, and werp rather astonished, when, at their next meeting, the Board repudiated all this, and, to extricate Mr Howell from what he called, "a false position," placed their Chairman, Secretary, and the School Committee, in s a far worse one. c The real " false position " is in Mr Sowell f having a Beat on the Board, and one is rather c too forcibly reminded of what the poet says « of the fly in amber. 1 " It is not that the thing is rich or rare, "But one wonders how the devil it got there." However, Mr Howell has gained his point — j the school has been built ; but it will be a long time before the disgraceful conduct of the Board will be forgotten. In reference to your remark that it ib understood that several will not send children to the new school, 7. will only reply that the settlers have far more sense, as they are ready to prove as < goon as the school is opened. Your other re- - marks, though perhaps in a certain seme true enough, show ft strong leaning, to say the least, towards the Board. Tho leading journal of South. Canterbury should not descend from tho impartial critio to the partizan. Our greatest living poet says : — " A lie which is all ajlie may be met and fought with outright, " But aHe which is part a truth is a harder . matter to fight." ' Amen, says — Yours, Ac, Thos. Lets, Late Chairman Opihi School Committee. Rocky Point, Opihi, April sth. [Mr Leys is evidently quite at sea in regard to the last meeting of the Board of > Education, or elae he would not imagine for a moment that the report of it which we published was the expression of our own opinions, instead of being a simple and .truthful record of what was eaid and done by the Board itself. —Ed., f.E] !