SECONDARY EDUCATION AT LEESTON.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9999, 31 March 1898, Page 3

SECONDARY EDUCATION AT LEESTON.

The Appointments Committee of the North Canterbury. Education Board presented a report yesterday ou the proposed system for secondary education at Leeston, to the effect that it wiis undesirable for the Board to undertake any liabilities beyond their own responsibility for the primary education of the children in this education district on the following grounds:—(l). Because thei-e are no funds that could wisely or justly be diverted from the essential work of primary education. (2). That nothing could be done for Leeston which the Board was not prepared to do for other districts similarly aituatedj (3). That high schools or even continuation schools could only be efficiently and economically established in the chief towns of the education district served by the different lines of railway, and by free or very liberal concessions being made to young persons travelling for educational objects. (4). That the small schools called high schools, for which endowments have been granted in several country towns in this education district, have not answered the purpose of high schools, having a strong tendency to degenerate into class schools. (5). That the failure of such small schools as have already been attempted must tend to show that that is not the right direction in which public efforts should be made to carry on the education of those young persons prepared to undertake something beyond the work of our primary schools, and consequently such efforts as that now proposed would be liable to delay more national efforts in a more hopeful direction. The report was adopted without discussion.