406 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



inconsiderable section of the working classes, who feel that as a body they 

 have neither part nor lot iu them ; while they afford a cheap education of 

 the higher kind to the children of rich men. I do not assert that these 

 feelings are justified ; I merely observe that they exist. Still they are well- 

 founded, to the extent that our system of secondary education is not being 

 conducted on sufficiently comprehensive lines. Much as I admire the noble 

 High Schools and Colleges of Canterbury, I should rejoice to see some one of 

 them in Cbristchurch replaced by a well-equipped Technical College, where 

 our handicraftsmen and their sons could obtain a special education, which 

 would enable them to hold their own against all-comers, and to easily 

 advance with and adapt their methods of working to the changes and 

 improvements which are being so rapidly introduced into the industrial 

 arts, while at the same time their intellectual desires would be slaked, 

 honourable and recognized distinctions would be within their reach, and 

 the social status of the artizan would be raised in a marked degree, to the 

 satisfaction of his own just ambition and the benefit of the community. 

 The working population of Canterbury, at all events, have a right to ask 

 this at our hands. They are entitled to demand that the wise intentions of 

 the Provincial Council in their behalf "should be carried into effect at the 

 earliest possible moment. 



Without however dwelling too much on this point, although it is an im- 

 portant one, I do maintain that we ought to interpret the term "secondary 

 education " in a larger sense than as meaning the teaching of literary sub- 

 jects and abstract science only. Doubtless it bore that meaning — and even 

 a more restricted meaning — once, but the world has rolled on, and the 

 statesman in this and other countries is now called upon to solve the great 

 problem: — Given a working population, forming the mass of the com- 

 munity, who have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and whose 

 wants and desires, both mental and physical, have been sharpened and 

 increased thereby, how will you keep them contented ? The way to do so 

 is by raising the status of the workman. It is not sufficient to tell him that 

 his employment is honourable, and that no citizen is more useful to the 

 State than he ; you must give him a larger scope for his energies and in 

 his own avocation, so that he may be enabled to achieve real distinction in 

 it. We must dispel the prevalent idea— that if the artizan wants to rise in 

 the social scale he must perforce abandon his own occupation, which is the 

 natural field for the display of his abilities. 



Leaving aside these reflections, however, our artizans are entitled to ask 

 the rulers of the country to give them all reasonable assistance in their 

 competition with foreign handicraftsmen. It is a reasonable request to 

 make that technical schools should be established in the principal towns of 



