5

I.—Ba

It should, perhaps, be mentioned, in passing, that the strictly secular character of the system, for which [Sir] Robert Stout was also largely responsible, was to some extent modified in 1897, when the Nelson City Schools Committee, under the leadership of the Rev. J. H. MacKenzie, a Presbyterian minister, introduced into the six schools under its jurisdiction the system of religious instruction since known and more widely adopted under the name of the " Nelson system." The organization of the secondary schools independently of the primary system, as described in the next paragraph, affords the historical explanation for the practice existing of the opening of these schools with daily religious exercises. Secondary education was provided for by the enactment during 1877-78, at [Sir] Robert Stout's instance —though, strangely enough, without the inclusion of the secular clause —of a series of Acts setting up a number of local High School Boards, to which was given independent control of their own land endowments. No effective provision was made for the inspection and examination of these schools, or for the control of the expenditure of the large revenues derived by them in due course from these public endowments. Thus the secondary-education system, if system it could be called, grew up entirely apart from and uncoordinated with the public elementary-school system. The New Zealand University system was the outcome of a deep-rooted provincial and denominational conflict between Canterbury and Otago, into the details of which it is unnecessary to enter here. As finally determined by the New Zealand University Act, 1874, the University was established as a non-teaching, examining body merely, while the teaching was entrusted to a number of affiliated provincial colleges—a system which was strongly deprecated both by the Royal Commission presided over by the [Hon. Sir] Maurice O'Rorke in 1879-80 and by the recent Reichel-Tate Commission in 1925. The subsequent changes resulting from the enactment of the New Zealand University Amendment Act, 1926, and the establishment of the Massey Agricultural College and the reorganization of the Canterbury Agricultural College, have to a considerable extent cleared the way for further advances in this important field. When, in 1885-87, Sir Robert Stout, who was then Premier and Minister of ; Education, sought to introduce manual and technical instruction into the education system, he found himself blocked, as far as the primary schools were concerned, by the limitations of the curriculum prescribed by the Education Act, which left no loophole for any such instruction other than drawing, upon which great stress was immediately laid. Sir Robert, therefore, appealed to the University colleges and the secondary schools to undertake the new work of technical instruction, but without avail. In 1895 the Manual and Technical Elementary Instruction Act was passed, by which the primary syllabus was enlarged and power given to the Department to organize this branch of education ; but the sum appropriated for the purpose, £2,000 per annum, was insufficient to permit of any material advance being made. It was not until 1900- 2 that two new Acts, framed upon more generous lines, paved the way for a more vigorous development of technical education in New Zealand. The Act of 1895, however, was important in that it opened up a new sphere of i activity for the central Department, by which ultimately its direct operations came ] to extend throughout the length and breadth of the Boards' districts. This laid the foundation for the duplication of administration which later, under the stimulus given to technical and secondary education by the free-place system inaugurated during the Seddon-Hogben regime, gave rise to the multiplicity of overlapping educational authorities which exist to-day. Other factors which contributed to the expansion and gathering self-confidence of the central Department during the first twenty years of its existence were its successful direct administration of the Native schools and the industrial and special schools, which had been handed over to its control in 1880, and its increasingly effective use of the power of making regulations with the object of controlling in some measure the administrative and building expenditure of the Boards. During these twenty years, under the superintendence of Dr. Hislop and the Rev. W. J. Habens, 8.A., the average annual cost of the central Department did not exceed £2,500, and the combined cost of departmental and Board administration at the end of that period constituted a comparatively small percentage of the total sum expended for the year.

Nelson system of religious instruction.

High School Boards set up.

New Zealand University established.

Manual and technical instruction introduced.

Expansion of Education Department.