BOOMING THE STATUS.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 965, 26 June 1897, Page 2

BOOMING THE STATUS.

A Raid on tne Youngsters' Uoney-

Boxes.

Second thoughts ate by no meanß always the best. The Board of Education has just afforded a forcible illustration of the truth of this statement. It decided, after much scratching of its corporate head, that it could beat celebrate the L iamond Jubilee by eending round circulars to the various schools under its jurisdiction inviting the children to send along their spare pence for the purpose of establishing a scholarship or scholarships, for which they would be entitled to compete year after year. It was an excellent Jubilee idea, and one which must have commended itself to every right-thinking man or woman. In fact, it was arrived at in one of those lucid intervals that sometimes occur even to a Board of Edncation. But the interval was merely evanescent. The Statue Committee had its eye on the children's money -boxes, too. and it promptly appeared before the Board to point out the superior advantages which a statue had -over a scholarship, its vast educational importance, the moral lessons it inculcated, the sense of loyalty it inspired, and so forth, with all the usual accompaniments of maudlin flap- doodle. It was the purest tommy-rot, of course, but it was good enough.for the Board of Education. .It instantly arose at the bidding of the Statue Committee and bashed in the head of the Diamond dcholarship, and grovelled at the shrine of the royal statue. Now, in the name of the children of this large and populous province, and in the name especially of the country children, most of whom do not visit the city once in five years and who may never see that blessed statue until they are grown men and women, we want to know what value they are ever likely to receive for turning out their money-boxes and sending on their little savings to Auckland to set up a marble image here ? Absolutely none. The idea is about as silly and nonsensical as one could well suggest. Stupendous folly has marked the action of the Board in abandoning, at the first invitation, its very practical and commendable scheme of making use of the Jubilee to increase the number of scholarships which are offered for competition by the children of our public schools. . Solid and continuing good and material benefit would be the fruitage of such a scheme. Every child in the province, however remote from the metropolis and however humble his lot in life, would have a fair and equal chance with all his fellows to win the benefits which his pence had helped to procure. But the statue will yield him no satisfaction whatever. He may never even see it. His pence might just as well be sent to Timbuctoo to buy flannel shirts and giltedged Bibles for the niggers who wear no clothing and cannot read. This Jubilee time has been prolific of cranky ideas, but the crankiest is that which took hold of the Board of Education and caused it to whoop for the statue and pitch the Diamond scholarship out of the window. At any rate, the Board of Education has not the determining voice in this matter. They invite the youngsters to shell out for the statue. We trust the School Committees,or, at any rate.the country school committees, will have the clear good sense to show their grit by taking the law into their own hands and declaring for the scholarship project, which appeals to every boy and girl in the province.