II

By these means was taken the first step in Canterbury towards the fostering of our national system of education. But in 1875, shortly before the abolition of the Provinces, the Provincial Council, on the plea of economy, set back the clock. They abolished the Education Board, and increased school fees and taxation for educational purposes.

Rolleston vigorously protested against this reactionary step. In a long message to the Council he urged that the objects to be kept in view were:

First, continuity of administration unaffected by political changes but closely connected with the Government of the country.

Secondly, a certainty in the financial arrangements which should render the system as little as possible subject to alternations of parsimony and extravagance. Dependence on a fluctuating revenue from the sale or lease of Crown Lands must sooner or later lead to an enforced economy very prejudicial to education. "The stoppage of a road or bridge", said Rolleston, "may only temporarily stay the progress of a district, but you cannot neglect or impede the progress of education and take it up subsequently at the point of hindrance in the same condition as it was previously. Not to go forward is to go backward."

Thirdly, he urged that "our best policy would be to make education free in all Government schools, and such a result is but a corollary upon the adoption of any responsibility by the State in the matter".

It was this need for adequate and permanent finance and the inability of the rest of the Colony to create educational page 46reserves on the Canterbury model that helped to bring about the abolition of the Provinces and Bowen's Education Act of 1877. Rolleston described that Act as "a monument of industry in its compilation and of judgment and tact on the part of Bowen in steering its course through the Legislature". Bowen had been Chairman of the Canterbury Education Board, and, in framing his Education Act, he drew largely on his experience in working the Provincial system.