MR DeLAUTOUR ON THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 419, 20 February 1890, Page 3

MR DeLAUTOUR ON THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

The following report of Mr DeLautour's addrees on Monday night, when presenting the gold medal to Hedley Thomson, Dux of the Hawke’s Bay district, waa held over from our last issue Mr DeLautour, addressing the scholars as children, said he thought he would be allowed to call them children, for if happiness and childhood were coincident, he was sura they were all children, tor he bad never before seen such a happy lot of faces. He hoped the experiment which had been made would be repeated, and he was quite sore the meeting felt indebted to the Chairman forgiving them the opportunity of being there to participate in those pure pleasures of childhood. The Chairman, he felt sure, had done the right thing in breaking away from the customary track and giving them such an opportunity. He expressed his opinion it was the proper thing to ask the public to join in the presentation, because it was a national state system that was being represented—a system of which they felt very prond. The whole system of education was represented by those children, and their success waa a public one—a system built up by our own money, and jealously watched over by all of us. It was therefore a fitting thing we should meet these children and teachers and express our thankfulness by our attendance, that so far as our local school waa concerned the results were so highly satisfactory. He knpw that all did not agree that our system of education was perfect, but human nature being as it was, and considering all the diversities of opinion and belief, we were as near perfection as we could get in a matter of the kind, until those bonds of charity and good feeling between persons of different creeds were still further extended. Perhaps then the system could, be made more perfect, and become a wholly Christian system. At present there was a lower road to take. Through our education system we were building up not only knowledge as opposed to ignorance, not | merely a highly mechanical system of multi- I plication tables, knowledge of rivers, pro > montbries, and capes—all of which would be 1 of little use to us—but were endeavoring to ] mould character, endeavoring to train human nature in those moulds mO’t fitted for it to take in too higher oivili-Minn, and if wj stopped short of what misht be hoped for in a more perfect sysltm.we at any rate omld be assured that we had the moat perfect system ever adopted, and that we had r.t leas*, built the skeleton, every bone compactly joined together! all ready to be bre»thei upon and made living by the life of the highest teaching grand result for a secular system only dating back fourteen years. Thera were many who thought the system a mistake, because they held that it led boys and girls to look gbova their ordinary life. He would remind them that if such were a fault it was only a temporary one. What could bs more natural than—it such he a mistake—for a parent to fall into it 1 Ha thought that his son or daughter, receiving perhaps a much better education tl;ao he (the parent) had done, should aspire to some higher walk in life than that of the parent, Jt was a very natural mistake, but would ba cured in time, because |n seven years, when the new generation took the place of lbs old one, when a higher Standard of education would be necessary, and everyone would be possessed of education, it would not be thought desirable to take anyone Out of bls or her 070 calling—not but that the highest was open to girls and boys like those present there that evening - but education in a few years would not make parents dissatisfied with their children’s position in life.

In a few years that feeling would disappear. There were some who urged that primary education should be more practical, but he disagreed with those persons. He considered it a mistake to think of making workshops of the schools. They cogid ng: be converted into blacksmiths' shops nr carpenters’ shops—they must be schools. Look at the boys that had come up that night, boys in the sixth stan. fiard. They were not fit to take a hammer in their hands, yet they now possess knowledge which s hundred pounds a year would not have purchased in England a few years ago. They would ba able to go into these shops and direct the muscle and force such as Taylor (the leading gymnast in the school] had to give. With them knowledge and industry would go band In hand. Not to weary the children, ba would now come to the special object of his presence there, and would call upon Hedley Thomson, the head boy of five thousand schoolboys and girls in this great pduoational district, a proud position which pa might well be glad of for his sake. (Cheers.) We might well be proud of that young boy; not for his ability—he gave him no credit for that, none whatever. It would be to bis discredit if he had not made use qf that ability. But it was to bis credit that he had exercised patience, perseverance, and probity—three great qualities in youth and manhood, It was these that brought him through, and assured for biq the fullest marks he could earn, in every previous eontest, until this last event, and even then he waa a few marks, some eight, behind the maximum, though 80 ahead of any other boy. He bad made a decided success throughout hie school career. As Mr Arthur had pointed put it waa not the success of one boy of precocious ability who might lose in the race by and bye. There jyere some half-dozen others on that platform pt whom Gisborne could boast—the scholarShip children had not been brought before them at all. The next two boys on thg top list were Gisborne boys, How a word or two as to the medal, which waa a solid gold one, pot only beautiful to look at, hut valuable for ita mere weight, It was presented by the Caledonian Society of Hawse's Bay. ana a great number would probably ask what a Caledonian Society had got to do with education- Many people knew that the Caledonian Societies had made it their business to foster education. How much

the cause of education waa indebted to the psledonian Societies be had not time to tell fhem, but he knew bow muoh Otago was indebted to them ; how Dr Hislop and gave night after night when there was system of education in force there, training all whether young or old, He supposed the Hawke’s Bay Society was doing what it oould to follow in the wake of ita parent societies. Addressing himself specially W the recipient of the medal, Mr DeLautour F Deluded as follows: —Hedley Thomson, if thought for a moqsut that this public presentation would make you think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, I would say "Perish this medal." But I think not. Honest merit deserves honest reward, knd honest merit need not shrink from being the recipient of that reward. lam confident, Hedley, that you will go on as you have begun, and having earned the esteem of your elders and of the many young people here, that you will continue in your honorable course and never disgrace us, Bemsmber, you are a Gisborne boy. Weehall tralch you; wo are proud of you now, and you must never, never disgrace us. (Cheers.) Alter the cheers had subsided Mr DeLautour told the Oliver lads Jeune and Malta, who had come next on the list for the high honor of Dux, to come forward, and he then asked tor three cheers tor them, to which a hearty response was mads, many extra cheers being added by way of Interest,