Local Responsibility, Oversight, and Rates Would Economize Better.

To the Editor of the "New Zealand Herald."

Sir,—Having just returned from a trip in the northern districts I have had a slight insight into the way our money is spent in the matter of education, and I will now endeavour to give the public an idea of the actual waste that takes place. In this particular locality I refer to, which at present I believe boasts of some 25 or 30 children, there was a school which had been put up at an expense of some £80 or £100, which with a very little expense might have been made quite adequate for all the wants of the districts for the next five or ten years, but as the School Board thought if was not quite grand enough, it was decided to have it put up to auction, and it was accordingly knocked down for the sum of and a new one erected about half-a-mile from the site of the old one at a cost of some £350, and a house for the master another £300, some land fenced and ploughed carefully and expensively, a knocker on the door, hat pegs in the hall, a scraper at the door, in fact no luxury omitted at our expense. It would altogether total up about £750. And this is only one instance out of many hundreds. It is about time some notice was taken of it. I for one would be quite willing to contribute towards the education of page 68 those children whose parents are unable to pay for their schooling, provided the schools were called by their right name—charity schools; but to pay for other people's children and get no thanks for it is rather too much of a good thing for

One of the Taxed.