Those 'Free Places'

New Zealand Tablet, 26 July 1906, Page 9

Those 'Free Places'

The fallowing paragraph is taken from the Dunediti ' Evening Star 'of July 21. It refe -s" to a meeting- of the Dunedin and Suburban School Committees Association • — 1 A statement of startling importance was made at last night; s meeting by Mr. W. (J. A-llnuft, head master of the Kaikorai School, Mho mentioned incidentally that out of forty-fij.e pupils vho would qualify this year for ' free places " in the secondary schools he did not think tnat more than half a dozen would proceed to the Hich Schools. And Mr. Whetter (head-master of Forbury School) backed up the assertion, saline that out of thirty-two children in his school who would qualify h& doubted whether more than two would go to the High Schools Yet another suburban head-master declares that though nearly twenty pupils in hrs school will be entitled to " free places," he is extremely doubtful whether any will go forward to the secondary schools It would thus appear that the opinion expressed by this journal when the " free place " scheme was inaugurated that the rush of primary scholars into the secondary schools would ease off is likely to be sooner borne out th a n even we expected.' There is another and uglier side to this question. What class in the community is likely to reap the greatest proportionate benefit from .those ' free places ' in the secondary public schools ?. Beyond doubt, the children o f parents that are well-to-do or at least in e a sy circumstances. These m a y, if so ' dispoged,' send their children to the State Hi fi h Schools. The poor must, generally, instead, send their children from the primary school straight into the stern school of life. ' For men must york and women must weep, And there's little to earn and many to keep.' And the poor m a n's boy and girl must not alone toil t 0 keep the pot boiling upon th"c humble paternal hearth, but a portion of their earnings is filched from them (in the shape of taxes upon the te a they- drink and the clothes and boots they wear) to pay for the ' free places ' enjoyed by the children of Moneybags and Co. This is pauperism in excelsis. And in effect— though not in intent—it amounts to an odious piece of class legislation.