The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

February 2, 1967 TERRACE BAY NEWS Photo by Inez MceCuaig. Five Brownies were presented with their Religion and Life badges b y Rev.J.M.Cano at the evening service in Holy Angels' Roman Catholic Church on January 22. This is a difficult badge to attain as candidates must know the tenets of their religion offices of the various Church authorities, and the governing of their country. Those receiving the honor included left to right Brenda Cebrario, Judy Parent, Elda Holland, Betty Anne Huard, Alma Cenerelli. Back Row: Mrs. Pat Cook, Mrs. Marcy Cebrario, Rev. Cano, and Mrs. Betty Huard. R. B. Spadoni and Reeve F. V. Harness were named as the finance committee at the Janu- ary meeting of the Schreiber municipal council. H. J. McPar- land was appointed acting reeve. Councillors H. H. Fisher and R. B. Spadoni were appointed as ratepayers' representatives to the community centre. Library board appoiniees were held over for further discussion. The regular meeting night for 1967 was set for the second Wednesday of each month. Mr. McParland was appointed to take charge of special decor- ations at. the town hall. Const. Keith Scott stated films on safe- ty programs are available from Ontario Provincial Police. Library rental was set at $800. There were many requests for donations to public service organizations, but council de- ferred these for consideration. Most councillors felt last year's decision should be retained. Since all of the agencies make yearly canvasses of the town, ratepayers would be giving two donations, if one came from the town. A letter of appreciation was sent to retiring councillor P. J. Guina thanking him for the time and work he had spent on Schreiber's behalf during his term of office. Clerk George Robson was ap- pointed to attend an assessors' seminar being held Feb. 8 at the Lakehead. If possible, a councillor will also attend. One of the most eye-catching centennial] decorations put up by the town will be the four by eight foot replica of the Canadi- an flag made out of plywood by Edmund Borutsky. Made to scale it will be lighted in the evenings. It is to be placed on front of the town hall. There will be one service at 7 p.m. in St. John's Anglican | Church on the first, second, fourth and fifth Sundays of each month, with a service at 9 p.m. on each third Sunday. Church school will continue at 10 a.m. Miss Aeja Lee, of Seoul, Ko- rea, visited Miss Ora Mae Har- ness last week. In recent years, there has been a great deal of criticism of education in this country, from both outside and inside the system. It doesn't take a Ph. D. to realize that a whale of a lot of it is justified. And I speak as a parent, tax-payer, and_ teacher. Only by frantic efforts and vast infusions of money have we managed to keep our system a mere couple of decades he- hind the times. I know it's easy to indulge in hindsight. But holy old jumpin' Jupiter, surely there could have been a little foresight some- where along the line. Look what we have: shortage of buildings, shortage of teachers, shortage of just about every- thing except pupils. And a vast surplus of them. This didn't happen overnight. They weren't all born last summer. It was all there 20 vears ago. perfectly obvious to anyone who could add and multiply. The only peo- ple doing any multiplying were the parents. And the crazy part of it is that we keep urging the kids to stay in schools which haven't enough room for the new crop arriving. "Drop-out" has be- come almost synonymous with "delinquent". It doesn't matter whether they're doing any work, or learning anything, or are just being bored silly. They're told to stay in school until, through sheer old age and the tidal wave pushing from behind, they get a magic piece of paper that will open a golden door to success. Chiefly to blame are parents. They have my sympathy. Many of them remember the great depression. Many others hon- estly believe material security means happiness. But far, far too many of them, delude themselves. They insist that Jack, who wants nothing more than to get out of school and become useful and happy as a salesman or a policeman, has the makings of a great surgeon, because he has always got more than 60 marks in science. Or that Jill, a born wife and moth- er, who wants nothing more than to get married, should struggle through a course in psychology, because she's al- ways been a first-class baby-sit- ter, by Bill Smiley Just a starter Page I3 Almost equally to blame are the big industries and _ institu- tions, from oil companies to banks. They are too lazy, or too cheap, or both, to interview young people and hire them on what they are. It's much easier. and a lot, cheaper, just to say, "We don't want anybody unless he has at least a Grade 12 certi- ficate', even if all they want him to do is stick square pegs in round holes. Another thing vastly wrong with education is the way it is financed. Let's take a couple of examples. Here's an_ elderly couple on a small, fixed in- come. After years of struggling, they own their own house. They pay $400 a year in municipal taxes. About half of that is for education, even though they've paid taxes for years to educate their own children or, if child- less, somebody else's. This system makes a mockery of the concept that every child has the same educational op- portunities. Don't try to tell me that the kid in a poor bush town in the north has the same facilities, options and quality of teaching as the kid in a rich suburb. He simply does not. Money makes the difference. And speaking of inequalities, isn't there something quite ri- diculous in a country of 20 mil- lion having 10 separate and dis- tinct educational systems? Much larger countries have one system, and yet have far more diversity and opportunity with- in that one than we have with our 10 rigid and separate ones. It is provincialism, literally and figuratively. Rigidity is another thing that sticks in my craw. We have ri- gid curriculums, rigid time- tables, rigid divisions of the school year, and anything else rigid that avoids difficulty and keeps the vast, Victorian vehi- cle shambling along somehow. You know what? I'm getting a little worked up about this. But you can't keep a good belch down, and I've been developing indigestion over the whole business for some time. So rather than galloping off in all directions, let's say this is the first of a series of articles on education by a plain, ordi- nary layman. I'll bet you can hardly wait for next week's thrilling instalment.