BROKEN DOWN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 4, 20 May 1887, Page 7

BROKEN DOWN.

(Napier Telegraph, April 20.) There is a growin? fear that the prophecies will come true that were spoken by those wbo could foresee the gigantic proportions to which the educational system mast grow. It was foretold that the system would break down with its own weight, and its supporters are now casting about for means to prop it up. It is only too evident that one or more of its three primary principles must be abandoned, unless something can be done to lighten the foundering craft. The three principles of the system are that education ■ shall be secular, free, and compulsory. These principles stand in relation to education as the three masts of a ship to a sinking vessel, and the question now is which is to be cut down and sent overboard ? The mizen mast is of very little importance, but the safety of the ship depends on getting rid of either the fore or themain mast. And which ever of the two is decided on, the educational system as we know it to-day, is blotted out. [f it ceases to be secular, it becomes denominational aad we should revert bask to a system that would demand payment by results. It would break up the Government monopoly of teaching the rising generation, and would throw the door open to all comers competent to conduct a scholastic establishment. The Colony would be saved the expen93 of bvilding schools, and the salaries of teachers would depend on their own abilities t* attract pupils. Thrown on their own resources, it is possible there would be fewer candidates for the position of schoolmaster, and it is equally as likely that the attainments of those who entered the profession would be lower that what we are accustomed to in the State schools. As against this, however, the syllabus would be lower to four standards, and we may be quite sure that there would be no infant classes. Free education would be rigorously limited to the three " Bs;", and there are not wanting very many colonists who are prepared to go as far as that but no further. And if we take the gre it majority of the children who have been attending the State schools since the Education Act has been in operation, we shall find that advantage -has rarely been taken of the system to go beyond that standard. The most of the children are withdrawn from school when they are in, or have just passed the fourth standard. For all practical purposes they are at that time fitted for the battle of life — not for professional careers, but for those to which they were born and reared, while if desirous of obtaining a classical education the High Schuol is open to them. Such, we think, would be the result of chopping down the secular mast of our educational ship, and as it would remove the gross injustice to which our Catholic fellow colonists are now subjected, we must say we should view with much equanimity the change we have sketched out. The other remedy is to send by the board the nrrin mast — free education — by which the present system would be retained with the single exception that the schc }ls would have to be self-supporting. If self-supporting they would cease to be State schools, and would become Board schools, the Boards having power either to charge school fees, levy an education rate, or both. This is into what, apparently, we are drifting. The Boards have not the money to do the work required of them, and the Government have not the funds to help them. The local bodies have already been warned that it is quite within their functions to erect and maintain school buildings. The shadow of cjming confusion has therefore i already come over us. Not in quite so many words, but still sufficiently clearly, the Boards have been told that they can look to County Councils and Road Boards for assistance. From this it is ouly a step to the imposition of a school rate, and the collection of school fees is only a slight advance in the direction of abandoning the main principle of our State system of education. There is yet i another way of saving oar schools from extinction, and that is to abolish infant schools and the fifth and sixth standards of the primary schools. By this a large amount of money would be annually saved, while the cause of education would lose nothing. We may make up our minds for some change in the system whereby the State may be relieved of a portion of the heavy cost of its administration. The question to be solved is what change would be least hurtful.