SCHOOL COMMITTEES. (To the Editor.)

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 276, 15 May 1873, Page 3

SCHOOL COMMITTEES. (To the Editor.)

Sir, —I would like you to inform me what kind of body a school committee should or ought to be. Are they supposed to take month about and teach when they cannot get a schoolmaster, or should a committeeman have sufficient learning to take his month about; because, if such is the case, we have been about four months without a teacher, and likely to be so, and I would suggest that they should commence to take their turn as early as possible. Some of our committee are able to speak French and Latin fluently at times, but whether they can speak i<- in the school or not is a question. The committee only have desultory conversations, and pass the minutes about three months after these conversations. I may state that I have been on committees, and the first thing that was done was the confirmation of the minutes of the previous meeting; but such is not the case here. The Chairman will not sign a minute if it does not please him, until the minutes of the previous meeting be rescinded, that were carried by a majority. What use is there for committees, if the majority has not the sway. The Chairman says the teacher might have a hold on them (so he might), and he over-rules the minutes until he has legal authority, and so the committee are ruled. But such should not be the case, as a schoolmaster is wanted here, and if the committee do not find out one, the public will find one, and that before long. I hear that Miss Atkin is about to resign. The committee have not asked her what they owe her after three months hard labor amongst the children. I expect they want her to go and collect all the fees about the township, and lodge them in the Treasurer's hands, so that he may be prepared to give them to this Bluffer when he comes up. The school committee ought to ask that a sum be placed on the estimates for the conveyance to this place of that blessed Bluffer, as I hear he has inquired at all the coach offices and other parties about Invercargill, and no one can tell him where Tapanui is. If anyone in lappanui was owing him money, I expect he would soon find it out. —l am, &c, One who is Humbugged. Tapanui, May 9. The writer of "Passing Notes" in the "Otago Witness" makes some comments upon Country School Cornraitties that may prove interesting to our correspondent: — " ' Several country teachers gave it as their decided opinion that members of School Committees ought at least to be able to read and {write.' —Vide Schoolmasters' Association. lam afraid the demand, however just it may seem at first sight, expects too much, Not both, surely! Why, it would decimate the country committees to enforce such a qualification as reading and writing. If once we yield to this sort of thing, there's no knowing where it will stop. Some one will be proposing an elementary knowledge of arithmetic or grammar, or some other deep mystery, and what will happen in country Committees then ? You see if the country teachers once begin to insist upon a knowledge of these occult sciences in their Committees it would end in their being now aud then treated with justice. What would the little local Neros do if you deprived them of the exquisite satisfaction of worrying a better educated man than themselves 1 It is related of a local Committee in Wisconsin that, having ordered globes of the two hemispheres, they determined to hold over their order for the other two until they were in funds. I could parallel the joke within a hundred miles of Dunedin. Only those who have examined the materiel of these little pettyfogging Boards in outlying districts can conceive of the stuff of which they are composed. Messieurs, the countryjteachers, you are not all very wise, I suppose, but, as compared with your governing bodies, the difference is all Lombard street to a rotten orange. You have the sympathies of ail who know of your sufferings. Some day, perhaps, the Committees at whose mercy you are will all know how to read and write, but pro1 bably not in this generation."