Honor where Honor is Due.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 412, 4 February 1890, Page 2

Honor where Honor is Due.

[H.B. HERALD.) We heartily congratulate the Gisborne District High School on the results achieved at the University matriculation examination. Out of eleven pupils in the Hawke’s Bay educational district who have qualifisd for matriculation no fewer than seven are from Gisborne. This sucoeus of Gisborne candidates is the more remarkable baoausa the District High School system has hitherto been regarded as anything but an unqualified success, and several such schools which were established in the South Island have been disrated. Most people in Hawke’s Bay do not know the distinction between High Schools proper and District High Schools, and a little explanation may not be out of place. Well, the ordinary High Schools have no connection with the primary schools, they are under different governing bodies, and t-hair funds are drawn from special sources, including fees. The District High Schools, on the contrary, axe directly connected with the primary schools, and are under the Board of Education. They represent, aa it were, an excresence of secondary education grafted onto the primary system. At Gisborne the secondary branches of study are carried out in a separate building, but entirely under the control of the head-master of the district schools, who has, however, as an assistant a teacher specially qualified to teach what are known as secondary subjects, such as the dead and modern languages, mathematics, science, and so on. As we have said, the experiment of fusing the secondary and primary systems has not been a success in some places, But that it has been a success at Gisborne cannot be gainsaid. The secondary school there has not been established twoyears, yet it has had on its rolls thirty-two pupils, all of whom passed the sixth standard before entering the higher classes, and at the present time the number attending is twenty-nine. This is a remarkable number for a email place like Gisborne, but it is even more remarkable that so soon after the establishment of the secondary school nearly one fourth of the pupils should be able to pass the entrance elimination of the University, Moreover, this result has not been attained by lavish expenditure. The higher school has cost the Education Board nothing at all. There is a small income from secondary reserves, which the Auckland Commissioners pay over—Gisborne occupying lhe anomalous position of being in the Hawke’s Bay district for primary education purposes, but attached to Auckland for secondary education purposes. This small sum, which does not represent more than the capitation grant for primary schools, supplemented by very moderate fees, covers all the extra expense qf secondary education in Gisborne. This proves one of two things either that the failure of the district high school system iq other places has been due to iuability to appreciate its advantages, or deficiencies in the teaching staffs) or that the Gisborne staff can rise superior to itsitirroundings and achieve success in spite of adverse circumstance’'. trust that there are uoue in Napier who will’feel jealous nJ the superior success ol Gisborne in the University examination, or qtmmpt to withhold any of the Jcredit due to Mr bfqrgati and his staff. Rut there are very many who tyill g»k themselves why Napier, withits cxpengiyelyrefiuippad High Schools and large teaching-staff, ebpqld have to follow so far behind Gisborne in. the race fqr honors.