The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1889. SOMETHING WANTING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2031, 8 January 1889, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1889. SOMETHING WANTING.

On the speech day of the Timaru High School recently two leading public men — m different language and perhaps with widely differing intentions — man aged to express precisely the same thing, tik., that there is something wanting m tonnection with the training ot the young — boys especially — m this colony. Mr Holies ton, who is an enthusiastic educationist, treated the mail r more euo , from a classical standpoint. He pointed out the danger of " a self-sufficient spirit " being developed and wen,t on to say " I would insist to my young friends here to-day that the result of all their training should be to convince them not how mnch but how little they really know. It is m the cultivation of a spirit of modesty and reverence, coupled with self-respect; that the best results of education appear." He, however, evidently felt that an ordinary school curriculum will not of itself alone produce these characteristics, for he admitted that the State " cannot deal or only to a limited extent " with the " training of the heart and affections, and those faculties which bring men into relation with the unseen and spiritual world." Mr Turn bull put the matter very plainly. He said that " What he wished particularly to speak about, he was very sorry to Bay, was the great decay of filial affection, of honor, and obedience to their parents — the loss of parental control. He did not mean his remarks to apply altogether locally, for he was well aware that this vice, or loss of pontrol, did not exist here to the extent that it did m other places. But there was no getting away from the fact that control was being slowly lost, and that there was a tendency to slight old age, and not give it that support it was entitled to. If a stranger m our land walked our streets on a Satnrday night, he would see them filled with young men and youth p, pleasant and blessed with intelligence, well dressed, and so on. But let the stranger visit our places of worship on a Sunday, and what would he find there — a plague more fearful than that which passed over Egypt, for where are the young men and fonfhs ? " Here then, from two inde pendent authorities we have testimony that there is something wanting jn the education of our youth — that something being tjifl training of the: Jieart and affections. For this tb@ parents even more than the churches are responsible, and it will be well if they lay to heart the lesson of the sentences we have quoted from two thoughtful speeches which is that they have-hot done their duty to Qod and society wherUhey have provided for the. trajpjpg "of their children's intellects, but that far more important than all this is that which we fear is only too often neglected — the training of their moral and spiritual nature.