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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Education

Education.

In the scheme of the Otago Association it was provided that one-eighth of the proceeds of the land sales, in the new settlement, should be set apart for “religious and educational uses,” under the control of trustees acting on behalf of the Otago Presbyterian church. But this education fund was not paid over to the trustees in cash. It was invested in land, the purchase of which thus became a permanent endowment for the Otago churches and schools. When the New Zealand Company came to an end in 1852, the trustees had acquired about 1325 acres in town, rural and suburban sections. The original price of these allotments was about £2650; but by 1887 they were returning an annual rental of nearly £5000. In 1866 the Presbyterian Church Lands Ordinance, passed by the Provincial Council, arranged that one-third of these trust funds should be employed in endowing chairs in the Otago University. Thus a chair in Mental Science was established in 1871. a chair of English Language and Literature in 1881, and a chair of Natural Philosophy in 1884. But in the meantime, from the first establishment of responsible government, the colonists had made strenuous efforts to provide for the proper education of their childern. In 1853, the Superintendent, during the first session of the Council, brought the question of education prominently to the front; and in 1854 it was resolved that a grammar school or academy should be provided for Dunedin, and that a teacher for this school, at not more than £300 per annum, a superior female teacher at £100, a teacher for Port Chalmers, at £100, and three other teachers at £100 each, should be at once imported. In 1856 an Education Ordinance constituted an Education Board and several school districts with their committees. The salaries of teachers were to be defrayed by a poll-tax of not more than 20s; but this regulation was never enforced, and the cost of the schools was met out of ordinary provincial revenue, supplemented by the school fees, and local subscriptions. As to religious instruction, the committee appointed certain times for teaching of this type by the schoolmaster, but a “conscience clause” was inserted for children whose parents or guardians might object to this kind of training. It is worth adding that this 1856 ordinance contained the first provision made in the colony for the higher education of women. In 1861 another important ordinance advanced educational matters another step. Five additional teachers had now been brought out from Home; there were eighteen schools in the province with twenty teachers and an average attendance of 560 scholars; while between 1856 and 1861 over £12,500 had been expended by the Provincial Government on educational purposes. In 1861, Dr Hislop was appointed Inspector of Schools, and provision was made for the speedy establishment of a High School at Dunedin. Another page 17 ordinance in 1864 increased the salaries of the teachers, and modified the regulations for religious instruction, so as to suit the broader and less sectarian views introduced into the province with the influx of population during the “gold boom.” The ordinance of 1864 also provided for the establishment of public libraries as well as school libraries in the outlying towns; and Anthony Trollope in his “Australia and New Zealand,” particularly mentions the wide circulation of books from these libraries, as a sign of the high standard of intellectual culture to which the province had already attained. In 1875, the last education report published under the provincial system shows that eighty-eight public libraries had been ounded in the province. At that time there were 157 schools in Otago and Southland, with an average attendance of nearly 10,000 scholars; and over £38,000 was spent during 1875 in salaries and school maintenance. These figures are enough to show that the Provincial Government dealt seriously with its heavy responsibilities in the matter of public education.

In 1877 the Education Act was passed by the Colonial Parliament, and the free, secular and compulsory principle that it instituted, has been maintained throughout the colony ever since. Otago was divided into two educational districts, Otago proper and Southland; and the subsequent educational history of these districts consists merely in the administration of the Colonial Act. The extent of this duty may be surmised from the fact that in 1875 over £28,000 was spent on education in Otago, with £25,000 extra in building and repairs.

Only primary education has been hitherto dealt with in this sketch. It has been seen that as early as 1856, an attempt was made to provide a High School for Dunedin on the lines of the Scotch Burgh Schools, in which there are departments for both primary and secondary education, and both sexes are taught together. But it was not till 1861 that Mr. Macandrew's Bill, giving effect to this resolution, was passed.

Lake Wakatipu: “The Remarkables.'

Lake Wakatipu: “The Remarkables.'

The school was opened in 1863, and in spite of the deplorable calamity that deprived it of its first Principal before it was opened, the young institution soon made headway. A succession of able and energetic headmasters, among whom may be specially mentioned Dr Macdonald (1878–1886), Dr Belcher, and the present Rector, Mr. Alexander Wilson, have helped to place the Dunedin Boys' High School in the very highest rank among the secondary schools of the colony. Immediately after the opening of the Boys' High School a movement was started to provide a similar institution for the training of girls. The success of this movement was due largely to the energy of Mrs E. B. Cargill, Miss Dalrymple and a committee of the ladies of Otago, who took the matter in hand. The school was opened in 1871, and its career under its successive Principals— Mrs Burn, Mr. Alexander Wilson, and Miss Allman-Marchant—has been one of uninterrupted success.

The foundation of the District High School system was laid in 1869, when the Grammar School Ordinance was passed. This act converted into secondary schools the upper divisions of the main district schools at Tokomairiro, Lawrence, Port Chalmers and Oamaru. The same year witnessed the constitution of the University of Otago, the first University established in New Zealand. It is noticeable that a special provision was introduced into the act to exclude the imposition of any “religious test” in connection with the University. The institution was endowed with large land reserves and had every prospect of a successful future. In 1874, however, it was affiliated to the newly founded New Zealand University; and 10,000 acres which had been reserved for a University in Southland were consequently vested in the Otago University. A School of Medicine was established in connection with the University in 1875, and a School of Mines in 1877. If it were remarkable for no other fact, the Otago University should be remembered as the first British University that admitted women on the same footing as men.

In 1869 there was fouded the Caversham Industrial School for the education of criminal and neglected children. The intellectual training of the most helpless and least promising members of the community has been conducted here for many years with great success. In 1870 the School of Arts and Sciences was opened under the supervision of Mr. David Hutton. In the School of Art instruction is given to High School pupils, to pupil teachers, and primary school teachers, and to evening pupils unconnected with schools; and it has been from the start an unqualified success. Further proof of the importance attached in Otago to education in all its branches can be found in the popularity of the Technical Classes Associatiton, which was founded in 1888. Classes in English, Classic, Mathematics and other subjects were taken by the Rev. Rutherford Waddell, Rev. A. R. Fitchett, Mr. G. M. Thomson, and others, and have been largely attended.

page 18

A good idea of the extent of the educational system in Otago and the degree of success that it has attained can be gathered from a valuable paper contributed to the Jubilee Number of the Dunedin “Evening Star,” by Sir Robert Stout. This article shows that in 1896 the total number of schools under the Otago Board was 218 and under the Southland Board 140; a total of 358 schools for the old provincial district. In Otago there were 554 teachers, in Southland 241. The average daily attendance was—Southland, 7851; Otago, 19,502. The total expenditure of the Education Boards for the year was—Otago, £87,946 (over £63,000 in salaries); Southland, £33,860 (about £26,000 in salaries). In addition to the schools administered by the Board, there were thirty-six private schools, with 103 teachers, and over 2000 pupils. Even the Maoris had not been neglected, for there were three Native Schools with 131 scholars. One important practical result of all this exertion and expenditure on education is that nearly 97 per cent, of the adult population of Otago can read and write: a state of things which shows that the founders of the settlement and the education system have not discredited their national enthusiasm for intellectual training.

The position of educational matters at the present time is quite as satis-factory as their auspicious inauguration might lead the observer to expect. There were in Otago, at the close of 1901, 218 primary schools, with 484 teachers, attended on the average by 17,544 scholars daily. In Southland there were 140 schools, with a working average of 7910, with 240 teachers. In Otago there were eight district High Schools—at Balclutha, Lawrence, Tokomairiro, Palmerston, Hampden, Mosgiel, Tapanuia and Port Chalmers—while steps were being taken to establish another at Naseby. The Normal School, which dates its useful and successful career from 1876, trained twenty-nine teachers for work in the primary schools. At the School of Art 443 students were instructed; technical instruction was provided by the Board by means of special classes for modelling and kindergarten work. The Technical Classes Association, to which reference has already been made, keeps up its good work in Dunedin, Waiwera and Invercargill; the average attendance at these three centres being over 400.

Protected. Muir & Moodie, Dunedin, photo. Head of Lake Manapouri, from Pomona Island

Protected. Muir & Moodie, Dunedin, photo.
Head of Lake Manapouri, from Pomona Island

The main work of the education system is of course conducted in the city schools of Dunedin where the Caversham, Union Street, Albany Street, Arthur Street, Normal, Forbury, High Street, Kaikorai and George Street schools average from 500 to nearly 700 scholars daily. The total amount expended by the Otago Board on education in 1901 was about £76,100, or a little less than the North Canterbury expenditure for the same period. Of this sum about £1276 was spent in scholarships, awarded on the result of the Board examinations, to primary school pupils. The Otago Board now awards eight scholarships at £40, four at £25, one at £24, one at £22, twenty at £20, four at £17, thirteen at £15; fifty-one in all. This is the largest number of scholarships awarded by any New Zealand Board, except Auckland.

The details of the educational system in Southland will receive further attention in the section devoted to that portion of the province. But in addition to the primary school system, secondary education in Otago is represented by a large number of high schools and private schools, which help to bridge the gap between primary and University training. The Dunedin Boys' High School and the Girls' High School rank with the largest and most successful institutions of the kind in the colony. The Boys' High School has a staff of ten, including the Rector, and the attendance for 1901 averaged about 180. This shows a falling off from previous years, but the reduction is due solely to the increased facilities afforded to students in secondary school subjects by the technical classes and University classes now established in the city. The Girls' High School has a staff of eleven, and an attendance of about 120. The Girls' High School was the first secondary school established for girls in Australasia; and many of the ex-pupils have already taken high places in the University and in the liberal professions.

Taking the private and denominational schools together it appears that there were in the year 1900 forty-five such schools in Otago, taught by 137 teachers, and instructing an average number of 2365 pupils daily. The fact, that scholars from many of these private schools frequently reach the standard of the New Zealand University Matriculation is a proof that the schools are an important factor in the educational life of the province. Of the denominational schools, twenty-seven are Roman Catholic schools, with a teaching staff of eighty-four and an average daily attendance of 1869. The culminating point of the page 19 Otago educational system is of course the University. There are now four separate faculties in the Otago University— Arts and Science, Law, Medicine and Mining. The full course of a medical de-gree may be taken at the School of Medicine. The teaching staff includes, in all, twenty-one professors and lecturers. The School of Mines is at present attended by about sixty students in Mining, Geology, Metallurgy, Assaying and Surreying. The total number of undergraduates keeping terms in 1901 was 248—189 men and fifty-nine women —a sufficient proof that although Otago University no longer has a charter of its own, it is one of the most active and successful branches of the New Zealand University.