Squandering Money.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 583, 17 March 1891, Page 3

Squandering Money.

Thi Education Board talk of the absurd proposal of providing a drill instructor for the Napier schools. A correspondent writes a sensible letter to the Telegraph, from which an extract is made : - ,f Sir— In your issue of last nieht there is a very common-sense protest against the proposed expenditure of £lOO on drill by our poverty-stricken Education Board. The protest was made on tbe plea that instead of using the money to teach our school children drill, it could be expended more profitably in providing technical and other education for those of our boys, who, having left school, have ceased to. acquire any knowledge, save that of vile language and vicious babita. If the Board can consider the advisability cf setting aside £lOO to retain a drill instructor, surely they will be able to provide that sum for the purpose of drawing our lads off tbe streets, should the drill instructor not be engaged. Now, in making choice of tbe better and the wiser of these two proposals, few will hesitate ; but the duty of the Board becomes even mere plain when it is remembered that giving £lOO to a drill instructor will be introducing no new subject into our schools, but will simply be providing a few of with a specialist in a subject already well taught and by do mean* of great importance, On the other hand, if the money were daveted to carrying on the work commenced in our school*, of fitting the rising generation to become good and useful members of the State, then, indeed, one cf the worst features of ccl nial city life (larrikinism) would bo grappled with, and that preliminary education, which to so many is at present only a curse, wou’d become a means to obtaining know'adge, valuable either on account of its present interest or by reason of its practical utility. An army of Instructor* in technical subjects would doubtless volunteer, and the fund would be almost entirely devoted to purchasing models, tools, ere. But one of the chief alms of this crusade should be to interest our youth in the grander features of our social development, and all that is great ’S’: in our literature, whether it be . p >etry f fiction, er travel*.”