MR. DRIVER ON THE EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 6, 30 May 1884, Page 23

MR. DRIVER ON THE EDUCATION.

Ax Gore (aays the Ecenimj Star) Mr. Driver is reported to have said that the cost of education had a good deal to do with the present depression. He had supported a motion brought forward in the House for the reduction of the vote, considering, as he did, that the c^at to the Colony, in view of the population, was out of all possible rea?on. They were spending between £500,000 and £600,000 per annum on education — a thing that was perfectly preposterous and out of our ability to pay. It was thought by some people that there were certain educational reserves in the districts, but that wa9 only a myth. The Colony could take them at any moment it liked ; and it would do so some day. The sooner the matter was put properly the better. If they were asked to p*y a poll tax aggregating £500,000 per annum, fixed at the rat e of £1 per head on every man, woman, and child in the Colony, they would think it very hard — especially if they had a family of eight or nine children. They would say it was an enormous thing. Bat at present they sat and quietly looked on while this large amount was being dragged out of the public revenue — a sum which would otherwise go towards lessening taxation, and whicli was now thrown away in imparting an education that was not wanted. By that he meant the education of the children of rich parents in high schools— the children of people who were quite able to pay for them. These schools, to his mmd — and he instanced the Dunedin one — were not at all well managed. Children were, however, being sjnt to them, at the expense of the Colony, and the in&titutions which might be established by private enterprise were being kept down.— (Hear, hear.) The money so expended, together with that devoted to universities and professors, was out of all proportion to the value received. They were perfectly useless at present, and it was time au effort was ma ie to reduci the cost of the ed m\tional system, which, as at present carried on, did more harm than good to the community. He (Mr. Driver) dil not wish that the children of the Colony should be raised in educational pauperism, or in othrfr words, ignorance. The State could afford, at a very small proportion of the present cost, to give every child a fair education in reading, writing, and arithmetic. If they got that, it was all be had to start in the world with, and he might say the same of nine-tenth's of the audience. If children displayed exceptional ability there were scholarships and endowed institutions, by meaus of which they could develop their talents. But at present we were going wrong, la a place like Dunedin we were rearing up a class of young men and women who, by being over-educateJ, were made to believe that they were too good for honourable work. The result would be that they would gradually sink into pauperism. — (Applause.) A tradesman in the Roslyn district ha tasked him to get his son (who was leaving the High School) into an office. He (Mr. Driver) advised him not to seek such a position for his boy. Every business institution had a long list of applicants, from which vacancies were filled up, and he told the tradesman that he should rather send his son into the country and earn his living by honourable work. Speaking with the knowledge that he would be pitched into for exprcsnng himself as plainly, he would say that they were doing' an absolute wrong to posterity and to the people now growing up by this system of over educating. The result was seen even now, for if applications were invited in Duneain for a clerk or an office boy, or any position in which the most money could be had for the least labour, there would be 500 applicants ; whereas if a ploughman, a shepherd, oc agricultural labourer were wanted it would be the hardest things iv the world to get one.