A PLEA FOR THE BABIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 29, 13 November 1885, Page 23

A PLEA FOR THE BABIES.

(From the Lyttelton Times.) Thk financial outlook for Boards of Education and School Committees in not of the brightest. First of all came that circular from the Minuter of Education, relating to school buildings. Then came the sentences of Sir Julius Vogel's Fpeech, referring to the expensiveness ot the whole Education system. More especially did the Treasurer dwell on the practice of cramming schools with young children of the tend erest v ears, children too young to fiud either pleasure or profit in school, but not too young to take up room and teachers' time, and therefore be a heavy burden on the sys'em. There can be no doubt that the Treasurer, no ereat lover, at tbe best, of education, free, secular, and compulsoiy. here touched on a weak spot, Very young children who have derent homes of their own (as most of them happily have in New Zealand) are much better there with their mothers than sitting ia Government schools. They are a nuisance to pupil teachers, an impediment to discipline, and a burden to themselves. Mothers and doctors nlik» are opposed to school for infants, and we know of no higher authonties on the question, The precocious little ones who can and will learn lessons are even more to be pitied than the rank and file of dulnexs to whom school if a nightmare, to be forgotten, if possible, directly its doors are passed For the precocious whose brains are piennturely taxed, whose minds' are forced hot-house fashion, a terrible retribution is in store. Katu-e revenges herself sooner or later, and lays the sins of parents, masters inspectors, and ''systems "on their innocent htade. Why infants should learn anything except to play, and do what they nre told to do, we have ntver seen or heard explained tr> our satisfaction. Why they should be sent to school to learn to idle, as the majouty learn or to cram, as do the minority, and should learn these arts at a heavy expense to the country, is one ot those things which only Boaids of Education understand. Deaf as these bodies are apt to be to appeals based merely on humanity or common -erne, it may be possible to hrgue with them through the p >cket. Hence, should the evil day of retrenchment at last dawn for our State system, it may possibly turn out not to be utterly evil. Such a day is very broadly hinted at in the circular before referred to. Boards of Education are ur°-ed therein to assist in relieving the Colonial Treasury by doin? something themselves towards the maintenance of their school building The hint is a suggestion that the time may come when Parliament may cease to be as hberal as heretofore to Education. Our readers may remember that we have before now protested against hasty reductions in the Education D partment. We were loth to see the piumng-kuife applied there before all other useless shoots ha 1 been removed from the administrative tree But it rcust not be forgotten that in o-her departments of the Cisil Service the knife has now been used pretty freely, an 1 that if further retrenchment is found needful, education may have to run tbe gauntlet through economicallymindtd politicians. Bhoul.l savings everhave lobe made, there will be good and bad wais of making them. To leave childreu of teachable sgee without school building-, to cram children into small ill-repaired ill-ventilated rooms, these ways will be bid. To relieve the pressure on accommodation, by keeping at home infante who ought never to be anywhere else, would be infinitely preferable.