EDUCATION AND ECONOMY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18432, 16 March 1922, Page 2

EDUCATION AND ECONOMY.

THE MINISTER’S VIEW. DUTY TO THE CHILDREN, The policy of the Education Department in wnat were described as the essentials of education was bflefly referred to L>y the JJou. C. J. Parr in the course of his speech at the official opening of the new Technical High School at Stratford on Tuesday. This topic was mentioned by one of the earlier speakers, ,Mr R. Masters, M.P., who spoke of "the cry for economy in the country." “I shall oppose any movement in this direction at the expense of education,” said Mr Masters. ' “Economy, well may it come, but so far as I am concerned, it shall not come at the expense of the boys and girls.” The subject was also referred to by the Minister, when he addressed the gathering. “I am glad,” he said, “to have in Mr Masters a strong supporter of my own views iu regard to economy in education. Of course in a department with an expenditure running into three and a-half million a year it will be my duty to see that It is well spent. If we are spending money and not getting the results we ought to in certain directions I shall have to cut things down, but I want you to understand that so far as the essentials ot' education are concerned they must be preserved. They must not be interfered with even in hard times. My duty to these children is to see that they shall have the opportunity as if the times were normal. Take away from a child ’he benefits of two or three years of an up-to-date course of instruction and nothing can repay that child. It would be foolish economy; it would be madness, even in times of financial stress, to take away from the children education to fit them for good citizenship. One of the main objects of education, and particularly the post primary course, is to teach our children to have minds of their own, and to think clearly and to study out the serious problems, which face our Empire, and which can only be solved by the pluck and resource and the trained intelligence of our people of the future.”