The cry in every direction just now is retrenchment. Many and varied are the plans for cutting down the expenses of Government. But, however the platform of candidates for Parliamentary honours, or Political Reform Associations, may differ as a whole, they, with few exceptions, include reduction in the cost of Education as a plank. And, as Josh Billings would say, where they do agree, their unanimity is wonderful.

One party comes out boldly and declares that whatever may be the results, the cost of Primary Education must be cut down by at least £200,000. This party includes the sworn enemies of any system of National Education. Men who do not believe in the education of the masses, but are, in many cases, afraid to say so, take refuge here. It includes those who would like to see Denominational Schools revived and supported in part by the State. It includes those who would have no objection to the masses being educated, if education cost nothing; but, as part of the cost has to be borne by property, they object, for they are large property holders.

Of this party New Zealand may well be afraid.

Another party that believes saving to be possible, consists of those who, in the main, are supporters of the system. But, fully conscious of their power, they intend to cut down the cost by say £100,000, without seriously impairing the system.

This latter party is, we fear, in danger of being misled by looking too exclusively at the large annual vote which is made for carrying on the Primary Education of the country, and not giving sufficient consideration to the vital importance of the system. The question of cost is an important one, but it is not the most important. Whether, as the result of any interference with our present system, in future years the poor will become poorer, and the rich, richer; whether class distinctions will be created and intensified; whether our industries will be crippled by reason of a population less intelligent than those with whom they have to compete, these are questions of infinitely more importance than the saving of a few thousand pounds, much as New Zealand has need to save.

The writer of this little pamphlet does not profess to be able to say anything original on the question. But he has had more experience in the working of the system than the general public, and now tries to put into handy form for reference, a few of those things which all friends of Primary Education ought to know, and make use of, during the next few weeks.

The proposals made by those who think that it is possible to greatly reduce the cost of Primary Education, without impairing the efficiency of the system, are few.

1.	To raise the school age from five to seven years. This finds most favour, for it appears, at first sight, feasible. This being the most important is dealt with first, and at some length. It is well worth the study of every man who has a vote.page 5
2.	To limit the Standards to four.
3.	To close some schools, as they are supposed to he .superfluous ones. This question is not dealt with separately, as it is impossible to discuss 1 and 2 without fairly exhausting it.
4.	To abolish Education Boards.
5.	To cut down the general grant per head and leave the authorities to do the best they can.

Raising the School Age.

Among those who think the Colony is spending too much upon its Education, a favourite method of reducing the expenditure is to close the schools against all children who are under seven years of age. At present children are admitted when they are five years old. This, it is contended, is too early. Raise the age to seven, and the country will save money, and the children will be all the better for being excluded. There are 106,000 pupils in attendance at our Primary Schools. Of these, 21,000, or about one-fifth, are under seven. Keep these out of the schools and save one-fifth of your expenditure, say £60,000 or £70,000. This proposal is delightfully simple, but, unfortunately, simplicity is its only merit. In the first place, the capitation grant is not made on the number of scholars on the roll, but on the average of attendance, which, for the year 1886, was 83,405. Children between five and seven would not be as regular in their attendance, particularly in country districts, as those who were older, so that to allow that one-fifth of the average attendance would be those under seven is to concede a point. We will, however, allow one-fifth, that is 16,681. This is a considerable reduction on 21,000.

But further—These children below seven do not cost nearly as much per head as those who are between seven and twelve. Except in very small schools they are page 6 taught in an infant room, where the classes are larger than in the upper department. As an example, take the case of a school in the immediate neighbourhood of Christchurch. In the infant department there is an average of 160. The teachers in this department are paid about £200; that equals £1 5s per head. Add to this another 5s per head for incidentals, which is certainly a very liberal allowance, and the total cost per head is only £1 10s.

But further—In the town, suburban, and larger country schools, closing the doors against all children under seven, would make it possible to reduce the staff of teachers, although, even in those cases, it would, as we shall be able to show, probably be only shifting the incidence of cost slightly, while it would be taking the children out of the hands of teachers trained for their work, and placing them under private, and in many cases, wholly inexperienced persons. But this reduction of the staff would not be possible in a vast number of the schools of the Colony, for the simple reason that the staff now consists of but one teacher. There are 543 schools—considerably more than half the total in charge of a single teacher, with the exception that a sewing mistress attends once or twice a week to teach the girls sewing, for which she receives £10 or £12. Thus it will be seen that the process of saving, by cutting off the lower end, could be applied to less than one-half of our schools, and even there to the least expensive part. You may deprive one-fifth of the children of school and not save one-tenth of your expenditure. But, as stated above, the saving would, to a great extent, be only an apparent one. If the public schools were closed against the children under seven, it cannot be denied that a vast number of parents would send their children to private schools. Many parents are anxious to have them admitted to school before they are five. This is well-known to teachers. page 7 And there are few who would wait until the children were seven before beginning their education. And for every child sent to a private school, the father would, probably, have to pay as much as, under the present system, he pays for all his family. Let the working men think of this. But with regard to the remnant that would not send their children to private schools. The ordinary revenue of the country would undoubtedly be saved a slight drain upon it. But the country, as a whole, would suffer in the morals of these children left until they were seven years old to disport themselves in the gutter. Ask teachers if the character of the children, who are allowed to run wild until they are seven or eight years old, will compare favourably with that of children who have been under the discipline of a well taught school. No thoughtful man could for a moment imagine that such would be the case. The children of poor parents must be left to take care of themselves to a great extent, while the father is away, and the mother attends to the thousand and one household duties which fall to her lot; and if the boys and girls are not at school they will be on the streets.

But it is a shame, we are told, to confine the poor little innocents, between five and seven years of age, in the schoolroom for some hours a day, subjecting them to "cruel cram" and "impure air."

Now who wishes to cram them? Who is trying to do so? To whatever extent this evil process is resorted to in the upper standards, everyone at all conversant with the working of our State Schools, is well aware that among the infants it is unknown. Do parents who send their children to these infant schools complain? Not at all. This evil exists only in the imagination of those who would like to find fault with the system, but don't know where to begin.

With regard to the impure air, we must admit that is not altogether a figment. But is the schoolroom the only place where the children are brought into contact with impure air? Or is it not a fact that in school there is a degree of ventilation, and cleanliness, along with impure air; but in many of the homes there is impure air without the modifying influences found in schools. And are there no bad and dangerous odours about the roads and backyards? To hear some people talk about the risks that the little ones run in coming to school, a person might be led to imagine that the children, without exception, came from homes that are little inferior to palaces. No; there are many much worse places than a warm, well-lighted, and fairly well-ventilated schoolroom for the boys and girls of the poorer classes, and to exclude one-fifth of them would mean an increase in doctors' and drapers' bills to the parents, and an accession to the already too large class of larrikins.

Abolishing Standards V. and VI.

Next to raising the school age as a means of retrenchment, the abolition of Standards V. and VI. finds favour. In support of this notion the most startling statements have been made. For example: A writer in the Lyttelton Times, June 16th, stated that the V. and VI. Standards are 10 per cent of the whole, or, to use his own words, "Standards I. to IV. comprise 90 per cent of the whole." This is true. He further states that the total cost of Primary Education is £381,509 (the estimate of the Minister for the current year). This may be true, or it may not. Then working out his own figures he makes the astounding assertion that "by the limitation to four Standards we reduce the capitation down by £110,000." The total cost is £381,509. Cut off one-tenth of this and you save £110,000! Had some person but devised an "insane system" in time for this writer to have passed the page 9 "absurd V. and VI. Standards," he would not have been making such blunders in his figures to-day. If these much abused Standards comprise only 10 per cent of the whole, then by cutting them off you can only save 10 per cent of the money—something over £38,000.

But, as in the case of raising the school age, the process can be applied only to the larger schools. Cutting off the numbers in the small schools means increased capitation grant for those that remain, a process much like Pat's, who, wishing to lengthen his cow's tether, cut off a piece from each end to put in the middle. In the town and suburban schools something might he saved, undoubtedly. But anyone who will trouble to make the calculation, will find that the saving, by reducing the Standards to four, could not, by any possibility, amount to one shilling per head of the population of the Colony. Is it worth while, for the sake of less than a shilling per head, to reduce the system, thereby making it inferior to that of every nation with which we have to do, and, in many respects, to compete?

Before leaving the V. and VI. Standards, it may be well to state that their enemies have made as foolish assertions about the subjects taught in them as about their cost. Many people believe that in these Standards, Latin, French, Euclid, Algebra, and Ancient History are taught, in addition to the more elementary subjects. Some of these assertions have been made in ignorance, while others have been made wilfully. To give those who care to know what is really required by the Act to be taught in the Primary Schools, we subjoin a copy of the Standard Regulations, printed by permission of the Minister for Education, the Hon. Sir Robert Stout. A careful study of these regulations will convince most persons that a very little more, if anything, is required, than is necessary to enable our boys and girls to read the newspapers and conduct their correspondence, in ordinary life, intelligently. And are we prepared to page 10 allow the education of our children to stop short of this? No man who wishes to give his family anything approaching a fair chance in life will stop short of it. This is pre-eminently a poor man's question. The possession of wealth already gives to the rich a thousand advantages. Why should this one advantage of a fair education he relinquished by the poor man. He need not give it up unless he choose. Let him hear this in mind when he records his vote. Let him remember that the closing of school doors against either those who are between the ages of live and seven, or those who have passed the IV. Standard, means the closing of vast numbers of small country schools, or the increase of grant per head. Let the electors contemplate the former of these alternatives. Let them imagine the condition of the children of small farmers and labourers without schools. Let them remember that whether they have education or not for their children, they must continue to bear a part of the burden of taxation; they must continue to help to pay the interest on money that has been spent mainly for the benefit of large landed proprietors. Let them remember that what they get in the way of education for their children, is nearly the only benefit they reap in return for the heavy taxes they pay. Above all, let them remember that any action that impairs the efficiency of the Primary Schools will tend to create and intensify class distinctions. The rich will continue to have their children highly educated, to a great extent at the expense of the country. The best and most lucrative positions will be filled by the children of the rich or middle classes; the children of the poor will become more and more drudges, and we shall, as a country, lose the grand opportunity that has been put within our reach, of doing something towards solving the great problem of the age—how to give to every man a fair share of the blessings of life.

Abolition of Boards of Education.

It is somewhat surprising that while the cry is heard on every hand that we ought to have more local self-government, there is a disposition in some quarters to move in an opposite direction, by those who are casting about for chances of retrenchment. It has been repeatedly affirmed of late that most of the money spent in maintaining Boards of Education throughout the Colony might be saved. It is easy to make such a statement; it is another thing to show that the work could be done as efficiently or as cheaply from one centre. "We find the cost of these Boards, of which there are thirteen, is £10,000 a-year. This is truly a large amount of money, but there is a large amount of work to show for it. In the case of four of these Boards one important item of their duty is the management of large Training Departments for Teachers. These Normal Schools cost the country at the rate of nearly £2,000 each, and without careful management much of this money might be wasted. The Boards also disbursed during 1886 over £5,000 for scholarships, £1,000 to Inspectors, and £65,000 for repairs and new buildings. They also examined and tabulated the Inspectors' reports, two for each school in the country, making a total of 2,108 reports. Would all this have been done for nothing by a central office? A gentleman in this city, well versed in the work of Education Boards, assured me the other day that if the Government would give him £600 a-year, and allow him to select a staff of under clerks, which should not cost more than £3,000 a-year, he would undertake to do all the clerical work now done by Boards throughout the colonv. "Just so," I replied, "But how would you keep the central department supplied with necessary information as to repairs, additions, &c., required by the schools? You would take the word of the local Committees, and grant them whatever they state to be page 12 necessary." "Not at all. Committees would like that immensely. No, it would of course he necessary to increase the staff of Inspectors, say one for each district." Exactly. There are thirteen districts. The average cost of an Inspector is not less than £550, including travelling allowance. The extra cost of Inspectors would be £7,150. We don't see where the saving would come in. One thing, however, we can see. The country would, by abolishing Boards, lose the services of a considerable number of men who, through having had long years of experience, have become experts in the administration of our education system."

Cutting Down of Grant.

It is an easy matter to say, on paper, that £100,000 can be saved by reducing the vote by that amount, and informing those who have the administration of the system that they must do the best they can. But we are persuaded that anyone who will go into the question carefully will ultimately agree with what was said on the subject a few days ago by the Chairman of the North Canterbury Board of Education, "That the annual cost to the colony could not be reduced by more than £20,000 to £25,000 at the outside, without seriously interfering with the efficiency of the system."

The following summary of expenditure in respect of all services under control of the Minister of Education for the year ending March 31st, 1887, will show how the money is spent. It is taken from Table 8 in the Minister's Annual Report:—

Head office (exclusive of Minister's salary)	£2,243
Capitation allowance to Education Boards, at £4 per head of average attendance (less revenue from reserves, £28,674)	304,930
Capitation allowance of 1s. 6d. per head for scholarship	5,150page 13
Subsidies for inspection	4,000
Subsidies for training teachers	7,650
Rebuilding schools destroyed by fire	3,891
Various items, including examination of teachers	506
Native schools	16,140
Industrial schools	16,466
Institution for deaf mutes	3,333
Higher education	3,500
Subsidies to public libraries	3,948
School buildings	51,606
Grant to Auckland University College	4,000
University of New Zealand	3,000
Total expenditure	£430,373

If we go in for cheese-paring, two or three of the above items might be cut out. Perhaps the least harm would come of cutting away the subsidy to Public Libraries. They have had some years of fostering care, and with the vast reduction in the cost of books which has already taken and will further take place, they would most of them be able to stand alone. The £5,150 capitation allowance for scholarships might very well be discontinued. Most of this money ultimately finds its way into the hands of Secondary Education authorities, and they should find the scholarships out of the splendid endowments they possess. The grant for Higher Education, £3,500 might be discontinued. In connection, too, with the Industrial Schools of the Colony, some people think that the parents and natural guardians of the children are not made to pay as much as they ought.

Without professing to be able to give a definite opinion on the matter, we must say that the amount of recoveries from parents and guardians appears very small—£5,357 out of a total cost of £21,824.

But, it will be urged: Can there not be something saved from the large item £280,000, paid in teachers' salaries? Let anyone who thinks so study the following page 14 abstract from the Minister's report, showing the number of teachers and their salaries:—

It will be seen by this table that out of less than 3,000 teachers there are 2,615 who receive less than £200 per year. These teachers cannot live and keep up the respectability demanded by Committees and parents on anything less than they have to-day. And it must ever be borne in mind that the requirements of the department are such, that any teacher who ceases to keep up his studies, by reading the newest books of the day, soon comes to be regarded as a fossil, and as such is very apt to be laid to one side. But such studies cost money. With regard to those who receive over £200 a year we have but a word to say. The chief incentive to energy and zeal on the part of the country teacher is the hope that after years of experience he may get a larger school where his salary will be, after all, no more than that of many shopmen in drapery and other stores. Besides, it is all a matter of supply and demand. With present salaries the supply of experienced and efficient teachers is not equal to the demand. A few months ago it was publicly announced by the Appointments Committee of the North Canterbury Board of Education that there was a dearth of suitable applicants for the position of teacher. Is any other page 15 comment upon the salaries paid necessary? Lower these by ever so little, and you increase the disproportion between demand and supply, and the result must be to impair the efficiency of the school. In this connection we draw attention to the following figures taken from page 7 of the Report of the Minister of Education:—"There are 2,894 teachers engaged in the public schools of the colony. But there are only 1,838 certificated teachers registered. Of these it is believed that 480 are not engaged in the public schools. This leaves 1,358 certificated teachers in the schools, the rest, 1,536 are uncertificated. Taking from these the sewing mistresses 173, and the pupil-teachers 917, there still remain in the schools 416 uncertificated teachers." To most men this can but mean one thing—the salaries as at present are not sufficient to induce persons to devote themselves to teaching. If there be retrenchment here, then it must be carefully applied, for it cannot be necessary to emphasise the fact that there could be no surer method of wasting money than by placing incompetent teachers in charge of schools.

There is, however, one item of expenditure which may be reduced, we believe, by £4,000 or £5,000 without hardship to any individual or damage to the system. That item is the grant made to School Committees for incidental expenses, such as cleaning, fuel, &c. As will be remembered, the Government has already moved in this direction. The Committees had credit balances at the end of 1886 amounting to £5,552. Their liabilities would absorb some of these balances; but it is evident that they were not in straitened circumstances. And if for a few years, until the colony rights itself, Committees find themselves unable to give many prizes or school treats, no very serious results will follow. To cut down the grant, however, to such an extent as to compel Committees to raise funds locally would be no saving.

To the above proposed reductions we might add one or two other small items, but the total would not reach £25,000, and we are persuaded that this is the extent to which saving is possible. To talk about saving £100,000 without doing damage to the system is sheer nonsense. To save half the amount will be found impossible without damage. But doubtless an effort will be made in the new Parliament to greatly cut down the cost. Therefore let the friends of education for the masses speak out now. A noble example has been set them by Sir Robert Stout. And let the electors so speak that every member may feel as he goes to his seat in the new Parliament, that in whatever other respect he may be free, he is not at liberty to move hand or foot in the direction of impairing our national system of Education.