SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND REMEDIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1929, 27 August 1888, Page 3

SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND REMEDIES.

— ♦ In a remarkably interesting paper con^- 1 tributed by Archdeacon Farrar to the "Fortnightly Beview" on " Social Problems and Bemedies," the following occurs, which is not without its fcignifieance to us m New Zealand :— lt is more painful to confess our disappointment as to the high hopes which were once attached to the spread of national education. That the Act of 1870 has produced many blessed effects we most thankfully admit, but it has failed to achieve anything like so much as we had once anticipated. ' ( Popu lar education," flays Professor GoJdwin Smith, "has gone far enough to make the masses think— not far enough to make them thick deeply ; they read what falls m with their aspirations, and their minds run m the grooves thus formed ; flattering theories make way rapidly, and, like religious doctrines, are imbibed without examination by credulous and uncritical minds." A stronger and ever stronger conviction is arising m many minds that our existing scheme of national education requires radical revision. It produces poorer iotellectual results than the educational system of France and Germany at far greater cost. It ia too doctrinaire ; too much Infected by a somewhat coarse standard of " payment by results ;" too much an education of books, and facts, and cram, and inspectors, g£d examinations ; too little an ed neat ion of t&e band and of the heart. It leaves thousands without any meanß of earning thelt brefc.d, while It widens the area oi bitter discontent. It does not m the least enable a> to hoJd our own agalript foreign competition • It tendfl disastrously tc multiply the app»]i>g superfliity ol struggling clerkdom. ".aJter twenty yean of education," says the Rev. 8. D Barnstt, ai the result of his experience It the East End, "we have neither taugh self-respect ncr the means of earn'.og i livelihood ; our streets are filled with J mob of careless youths, and our labo market overstocked with workers whoai work is not worth fourpenoe an hour."