Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1884. THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 207, 29 July 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1884. THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

In a recent article we discussed the importance of education and the results which will probably spring from the very liberal laws which exist m relation to it m New Zealand. We propose now to deal with the principle of these laws, and the system itself rather than with their effects, and believe the information which we have collected and append to be correct. The Education Department is a large one, both m the staff of officials which it keeps employed, and the extensiveness of its operations. Under the head of the department, which used to be the Hon. Mr Dick, the Minister for Education, we have the InspectorGeneral, and thirteen sub-inspectors, all of whom are m receipt of substantial salaries, and somewhat heavy travelling expenses, and under these again are some hundreds •of district schoolmasters, with their assistant itaff' of teachers. This comprises the teaching 6taflP and management. In addition to this, the department supplies new schoolhouses, and teachers' residences, and keeps existing ones m repair and incurs various other expenses of'a similar nature. At the addresses delivered before the recent elections, nearly all the candidates m the colony declared themselves m favor of reducing the cost of the department m some way or other, and the means by which most suggested that this should be done were, first, by discontinuing the maintenance of High Schools by the State,, and secondly, by only teaching up to the 4th Standard. Both steps might be taken with seemingly great advantage to the pockets of the taxpayers, and, we believe, without serious detriment to the education of the children of the poorer classes. Some of these working men raise a considerable outcry at the idea of limiting the instruction which their children will receive to the Fourth Standard, although most of them are agreable, and wisely, to the abolishment of State High Schools.

At Fielding, recently, when one of the candidates for the Manawatu scat was addressihg the electors, one of the audience rose up and enquired m a most indignant manner, whether that gentleman would deprive the working man's children of the opportunities of receiving a thorough education, and he seemed to be under the impression that by reducing the instruction given m State schools to the Fourth Standard, the poorer classes would suffer a great wrong at the hands of the country. Now, it is evident that people who talk m that manner are totally ignorant of the extent of education which is bestowed upon children m the Fourth Standard. In our opinion, and we hardly think many can widely differ from us m the view we take, a child that has diligently studied and mastered all the subjects which that Standard embraces, will be really a very passably educated boy or girl, as the case may be; and, so far from being insufficiently educated to become an intelligent working-man, or work-ing-man's wife, will be fit for a station m life far above that m which they were born. In fact any child who passes it, will be far more fit to undertake clerical work, then to remain a " horny-handed " son of toil. The 4th standard embraces the following subjects: — Long multiplication of money, reduction, the compound rules, applied to weights and measures, practice, and the making out of bills of accounts, tables of weights and measures, and mental arithmetic. In geography, a knowledge of the countries of the World, with their capitals, and all the principal seis, gulfs, mountains, rivers, lakes, capes, straits, islands, and peninsulrs, on the map of the world; the geography of Australia m outline, and the drawing of rough maps of New Zealand, with one set of the principle features such as capes, rivers, and towns. Then m mathematical geography, the earth, day and night, and the knowledge of zones, meridians, and paral. lels, and the various climates, etcSuch matters as general history need not be learnt if the parents do not choose. Now, with a thorough knowledge of all these subjects, surely the children of a workingman cannot be said to have been turned adrift on to the sea of life, without a substantial samttering at any rate of general knowledge. On the contrary, we would go further, and say without hesitation that a boy so educated, would befit to take a situation m which clerical work was required. He would make a good tradesman's clerk, with his knowledge of accounts, and be a very presentable member of the society he would move m, with the general knowledge acquired m the Fourth Standard of education. Now, either the country must be content to rest satisfied with such results as the present system of popular education offers, with the reductions stated, and make a substantial annual saving, or it must be i prepared to go to the extra expense and maintain the Fifth and Sixth Standards. The educational candle cannot be burnt and still retained, any more than that used m domestic j life. People are rather too apt to cry out agaiust expenditure, and then, when reductions are macle to suit them to complain of being hardly used. But we think the real facts of the case cannot be fully understood, or very few men would I complain that their children were not receiving a very liberal eduoa^ tion, m every sense of the word, when they were well grounded m all the subjects that are embraced when teaching up to the 4th Standard.