History Teaching under the New Zealand Secondary School System 1877-1944

Abstract

In contrast to the free, secular and compulsory primary school system established by the Education Act of 1877, secondary schools possessed none of these characteristics during the years 1877-1902. With the exception of a few fortunate scholarship holders, all secondary school pupils paid fees amounting to the sum of eight to twelve guineas; and although the actual teaching was secular, the day's work was commenced in many schools with Bible reading and prayers, while for those who had reached the age of fourteen, attendance was voluntary. Indeed, the 1877 Act made little provision for secondary schooling, a fact more easily understood when it is remembered that even the arrangements made for elementary education were arrived at only after considerable difficulties had been overcome. Such difficulties embraced the question of centralised or provincial control of the primary schools and the amount, if any, of religious instruction to be given. Nor was an idea which considered secondary education a luxury conducive to the establishment of a state controlled secondary school system. In face of such problems credit must be given to the statesmen of the day who wrestled with these difficulties and eventually gave the colony the national system of free, secular and compulsory education embodied in the 1877 Act. The failure to go further, however, resulted in the lack of connecting links between primary and secondary schools.