Coming Members of the Education Board

Observer, Volume X, Issue 629, 17 January 1891, Page 9

Coming Members of the Education Board

Mr Greenwood, it is rumoured, has retired from the candidature for one of the impending vacancies on the Board of Education, owing to the calls of his farm, and the great inconvenience it would be to him to attend the weekly meetings. We feel sure this will be widely regretted, for there is probably not in the Auckland Province another man so interested in educational matters, and so alive to the mal- administration of the present Board. • Mr Burton, solicitor, is being ' brought out,' it is stated, by the town teachers for one of the vacancies. He has a brother engaged as first assistant in the Ponsonby School, thanks very much to the united action of Messrs Upton and Devore, which brother was appointed at a fixed salary of £175 not long ago. Now, however, he reoeives slightly more than the very fixed £175, namely £225, and with his brother a member who very likely would not quite forget him, the £225 would soon very naturally, and for good reasons, swell into £400 or £500. We should accordingly like to see Mr Burton, solicitor, on the Board. Mr Devore, another lawyer, it is also said is being ' brought out.' With his partner, Mr Cooper, he would be able to do much in various respects ; and with the kindly 00-operatiori of the two, the teaching service might soon be more of ' a refuge for the destitute ' than hitherto. We trust that in the interests of such persons, and a few others, Mr Devoid will be elected ; so that the cause of primary education, and some other interests also, may be carefully ' conserved.' The illegal grading of teachers could then go on just as noiselessly as hitherto it has gone on under Mr Cooper's legal eyes. Still another candidate is being brought out by the town teachers, if Dame Rumour speaketh correotly, viz., Dr. Macarthur. About his suitability in some respects we shall, when more fully assured, have a word or two to say. It is deplprable that the country committees take little or no interest in the matter, and that they allow the management and spending of £80,000 a year of public money to be altogether in the hands of a set of selfish town teachers. It is certainly a wretched state of things. Of the retiring trio, Meß3rs Upton, Carr, and Monk, and*the other trio (by-the-bye, all lawyers, Messrs Burton and Devore, and Dr. Macarthur) now seeking the honour — and something. else for their 'dear friends,' with perhaps a nibble indirectly for themselves, it is scarcely possible to pronounce which is the better or the worse ; they are all undeserving of seats on the Board. Of the two, however, we would prefer, as the saying goes, the ' devils we do know to the devils we don't know,' whioh is very small, and meant to be very small praise indeed.