THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXV, Issue 12985, 28 January 1910, Page 4

THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

It begins to be evident that something or other will have to lie done with the Education Department. The Department appears to be run by the Inspector-General of kill <!s who, besides being a faddist ,is a good deal of an autocrat. In consequence the various Boards of Education arc seething with discontent, and the mere mention of the Inspector-Generals name is received by the average teacher with the pitying smile usually bestowed upon a crank. * Possibly the Boards and the teachers expect too much, and the fact that Air llogbcn is a hard worker must, in justice, be recognised. Jlut the suspicion arises that, beneath all the smoke, (here must ho a spark or two of (ire. and that it would be as well if matters were placed upon a more satisfactory footing. There is a good deal of truth in the' contention that the constitution of the Education Conference is not what it should be, and that, while the inspectors are undoubtedly the proper persons to debate on purely educational subjects, the Boards, as representing the taxpayers and the parents, should also -end delegates to take part in discussions on other matters of a non-expert nature. Then, too, it seems undoubted that the economics effected in the Department have liegnn at the wrong end; necessaries arc being starved, and extravagances—to wit, the School Journal —are kept up. But the Education Department is not the only Department in which that is being done. Whatever lie the reason, it is nevertheless a fact that the "‘wrong end of the stick" lias frequently been seized in effecting the recent retrenchments.