Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1907. KILLING THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXI, Issue 12124, 22 March 1907, Page 4

Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1907. KILLING THE DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL.

We venture to say that when the rearrangement of the Wanganui schools was decided on a few months ago by a joint conference of the Education Board and the School Committee, few, if any, members of those bodies, not even excepting the gentleman who outlined the scheme, realised the full import of the proposals explained bj Mr F. Firani, the chairman of the Board. We say this advisedly, for we are confident that if the members of the conference apprehended that the carrying of the proposals would result in the District High School receiving a severe set-back, with the consequent injury to one of the oldest and most trusty servants of the Board and his fellow teachers, they would not have given their assent to the scheme. Yet it is manifestly clear, from the letter forwarded to the Board by Mr Aitken and read at the meeting on Wednesday evening, that unless a yhange is made and an infant school established in conjunction with the District High School, the attendance at the latter institution will speedily diminish and a gross injustice will be inflicted on the teachers. The position is clearly set forth by Mr Aitken, who in the course of his letter to the Board says : Here is a school which for 15 years has been continually on the up-grade, rising from 214 in average attendance at the end of 1892 to 407 in average attendance at the end of 1906, and showing no sign of a stoppage in the increase. But through the amalgamation of the schools at Queen's Park and Guyton Street, the increase is suddenly stopped, and the second standard, which ought to be the feeder for the whole school, is reduced from its ordinary proportions (it numbered 88 on the roll last year at this time) to 55 on the roll now. And the Board place a prohibition on the admission of pupils of school age who would come to this school, but who are compelled to pass the door. Is this fair? I can honestly say that I have never agitated or moved in one way or another for the amalgamation of St. John's School to this one, because I knew well what it meant to the St. John's teachers, but I do think that it is most unfair and most discouraging to find that St. John's School is being built up at the expense of this one. If <fhe same conditions are allowed to prevail, in four years' time (that is until

the present small Standard 11. class has found its way up through successive Standards and has been succeeded by others as small as itself or smaller), the school will have shrunk to five-eighths of its present attendance, and fallen from grade 16 to grade 13, or less. Such a result as this was surely never contemplated by the members of the Education Board or the School Committee. In order the better to understand the position it is necessary to review the whole matter from the inception of the re-arrangement proposal. About nine months ago the headmasters of the District High and Queen's Park Schools requested the Board to establish infant departments in connection with their respective schools, submitting the following reasons why, in their opinion, their request should be granted: (1) The schools are now "mixed schools" in the ordinary sense of the term; there is nothing in their constitution which precludes the reception of any children of school age, and we respectfully submit that it is unfair to deny to these schools the privileges possessed by all other schools of similar standing in the education district, e.g., Haweia, Marton, College Street, Campbell Street, and Terrace End, of possessing an infant department. (2) There does not seem to us to be any valid reason why a parent should be forced to move his children from one school to another on attaining a certain age or stage simply because his home is in Wanganui. On the contrary, it seems to us desirable that parents should be able to send all their children to one school and to keep them there during the whole period of tUeir primary school life. (3) Very many of the pupils attending our schools have infant brothers or 6i&ters who could accompany them to or from school, and be under their protection, both going and returning, and, generally, all day long, a thing which, however desirable, cannot happen when the infant schools are in different places. (4) As teachers, we would respectfully state that compulsory removal from a I school is, in our opinion, certain to be attended with a certain degree of loss. When a child has spent two years, and these two are the most formative and plastic of the whole school life, under the guidance of a certain set of teachers, is then placed in the care of another set, a certain degree of loss in the process of readjustment is, we think, inevitable, not only in getting into touch with new surroundings, but also in unlearning things which one set of teachers may have thought necessary aud the other unnecessary. (5) Boys, girls, and infants in one Bchool would seem to approximate more to family conditions, and to that extent to be more natural, than to have the infants in a separate school or separate schools.. Under these circumstances, big girls and boys learn to be gentle and considerate, while the little ones look up to them for protection and example. We therefore respectfully suggest that our schools have infant departments established in connection with them. We have, etc., JAS. AITKEN. H. M. PAYNE. Very cogent reasons, our readers will admit. The Board evidently thought so, too, for, on the motion of Mr Pirani, it was resolved: "That the Board is in favour of the Wanganui School Committee's proposals for infant departments being attached to the District High and Queen's Park Schools, and the abolition of the Guyton Street and St. John's Infant Schools as separate schools, and that the Chairman and the Chief Inspector draw up and present to next meeting a scheme for the allotment of staffs and salaries." This was in June last, but it was not until November that the scheme was presented for the consideration of the joint conference, and then it was found to be on very different lines to those originally suggested by the Committee. The proposals were first of all laid before the Education Board by Mr Pirani, and discussed at considerable length in committee. Afterwards the School Committee waited on the Board by invitation, in order that the matter might be further gone into in conference. The two bodies then, went into committee to discuss the details of the scheme, and finally Mr Pirani made a statement to the Press to the effect that, under the present circumstances, it was considered best to amalgamate the Infant and Queen's Park Schools. Ec St. John's, it would be reduced from an ordinary to an infant school, leaving the District High School in its present position. The main reason against the amalgamation of the District High School with St. John's was that the headmaster of the former had both the primary and secondary departments to attend to, and if the supervision of St. John's were added to his duties he would have to spend a considerable time in a school half a mile I away. Another objection would be the reduction of two of the teachers at St. John's, and it would be absolutely impossible to carry on there with a lesser staff than at present. It was not thought advisable to add an infant department to the District High School on account of 'the uncertain tenure of the land, but if they got a better tenure they would combine and place it in the same position as Queen's Park. The Board had done its best, by the transfer of teachers from one school to another, to avoid injustice. He desired to state that there was no dissatisfaction, on the part of the Board, with any of the teachers of the Wanganui schools, and if any suffered in salary or position through the change, it was because it was impossible to fit in the Government scale of salaries with the positions. The Committee gave their assent to the proposals, and they were duly given effect to. And what w the result? Mr Payne has been given charge of the Infant and Gonville Schools (and though objection was made to Mr Aitken supervising a school a quarter of a mile away, no exception was taken to Mr Payne looking after a school nearly two miles distant), and now he has over 600 children under his charge, while Mr Aitken has but 400. Mr Payne's salary is J4OO, and Mr Aitken's J395, but the difference would be greater but for the fact that Mr Aitken gets ,£45 for the secondary department. In other respects the District High School is placed at a great disadvantage, in that the first assistant's salary is £20 less than that paid at Queen's Park, the second assistant receives £30 less than the third assistant at Queen's Park, and other teachers' salaries are m

like proportion. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the higher remuneration given at Queen's Park enables the school to be better equipped in the matter of teaching. Far be it from us to reflect) on the capacity of Mr Payne or any of the teachers, for whom we have the highest respect, but we must enter our protest against an old and worthy servant being placed at a disadvantage. Mr Aitken hae worthily upheld the reputation of the school from a scholastic point of view, while in many other ways he has worked hard and consistently to improve its efficiency, and it is not just that he and his school should be even unwittingly injured. The Board should not hesitate to carry out its original intention to establish an infants' department at the District High School. The objections raised by Mr Pirani arc weak and inconsistent. While on the one hand he deprecates aMy step that will interfere with the salaries of one or two teachers at St. John's, he supports a scheme which must result in seriously impairing the efficiency of the District High School, and ere long cause a considerable reduction in the salaries of all the teachers at the school. The solution of the difficulty is simple, and was suggested by the Rev. Mr Drake at the last meeting of the School Committee, viz., the removal of St. John's School nearer to Aramoho and the establishment of an infant department at the District High School. We Have no ttouuo that wuen the memocro of the Hoard hare carefully digested the contents of Mr Aitken's letter and have cM'oo ilic matter their earnest attention, they will realise that their proposals will have an effect they never for one moment contemplated. We hope the result of, such consideration will be that they will follow the course originally suggested by Messrs Aitken and Payne, and place both schools on an equal footing with respect to the admission of infants.