Compulsory Education.

Waipawa Mail, Volume X, Issue 1021, 11 December 1886, Page 3

Compulsory Education.

A uckland Star. Neglect in enforcing the compulsory clauses of the Education Act is not merely an indication of weakness, but also of a culpable indisposition on the part of those in authority to do the work thoroughly with which they have been entrusted. To tolerate the neglect of those children who are least subject to parental care and guidance tends not only to expose society to serious evils, but the State to a certain measure of contempt. The authorities will probably aver that they are hindered by want of funds. Additional school accommodation will be required in the largo centres, and there will be also some official and legal expenses;! - but after providing so liberally for primary, secondary 7, and even university education, we connot consistently stop short and leave the most necessary and urgent part of the work irndono. By not doing it thoroughly we lay our system open to the attack of its enemies, whether they are such on account of its cost or

from fear lest the rising generation, being educated, they will be loss subservient as workmen, or from inveterate religious prejudice. It is not a question of free education, but of adaptation of the means to accomplish an object which has been pre-detennined to bo done by Act of Parliament. The parents of these children contribute, in proportion to their means, as substantially to the revenue and well-being of the colony, by their consumption of taxable products and beneficial labour, as any other section ot the public. Those who are conversant with the history of education in England, know well that the poor have been robbed generally of educational endowments loft for their special benefit during the roll of centuries, amply sufficient to have rendered the valuable efforts of Lancaster, Bell, and their coadjutors and successors quite unnecessary. There, is a tendency on the part of society, not merely to neglect, but even to oppress and rob those who are pusillanimous and careless. We are but the descendants of pirates and border riders. The utmost care and watchfulness will bo required, lest wo show a similar hereditary taint, in the matter of education, to that which, up to very recently, rendered England notorious, if not infamous. Modern politicians have been almost exclusively engaged in undoing the trammels in which we have been bound. Concurrently witii tho people’s possession of the franchise there lias arisen a disposition on tho part of those in power to ameliorate tho condition of those who live by labor ; but there exists here, ns well as in European countries, what the Right lion. John Bright calls “ the residuum,” which needs tho utmost attention and care, in order that those germs of character may t o fostered and c.dled into action, which distinguished the safe and useful from the useless, injurious, and even dangerous members of the commonwealth. The enforcement of tho compulsory clauses. would certainly operate in this direction. We observe with pleasure that a stir has been made in the City .School Committee and the Board of Education, and wo hope that at last some effective measures will bo adopted to take up tho work of those bodies and to redeem the city from tho stigma which at present rests upon it in connection with this matter.