Mr Macandrew on Education.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 131, 14 May 1872, Page 6

Mr Macandrew on Education.

On Monday evening, May 0, Mr Macaudrew, M.H.K. for Port Chalmers, while adI dressing his constituents, made the following remarks on the above subject:—" To my \ mind it is as clear as the sun that if we alter | the present national, unsectarian system, |in favour of denomir.ationalism, we skill J have no i ducation at all. or a n iserable, shri- ! vol!ed-up systeir, altogetheran abortion. No doubt in the large centres of population it : night be possible to carry on the denominational system of education, but throughout the country, where there are thin populations, tlitre will, in reality, be no education worthy of the name. We hear a good deal about secular education. 1 should like to know what that means. Docs it mean the exclusion from our public schools of all reference to the Great Creator, the God in whom j we live, and move, and have our being! I Does it mean the exclusion of all reference to I a future st-.te, and of all reference to a world 1 beyond the grave I If this is what is meant, I then, T say, perish all secular education! (Gieat applause.) Gentlemen, I believe it means exclusion from our public schools of that ancient, venerable, and true book, tlie Bible—the book which, translated into our mother tongue, has been the bulwark of civil and religious liberty, and the foundation stone of modern civilisation. Upon notliiy" else has the glory of the British Empire :?.,/ the greatness of the Anglo-Saxon race so much depended.—(Renewed applause.) Yet we are asked to deny to our children the right of using that book as a lesson-book. ' We may allow our children to read the history of the Carthaginians, the Romans, the j Greeks, and others ; but about the Jews,— the most interesting race upon the fare of the earth, —or about the early history of Christianity, they must read nothing; there is no objection to their reading the works of Demosthenes, of Virgil, and of Shakspeare, kit by no means must we admit the writings of | Moses, of David, of Jeremiah, of Solomon, j and of Paul, and of that great teacher him* j self, Jesus Christ. I really have no patience in thinking about it. Am Ito be told that my children are to be taught in the common I schools to read all about the mythological deities of antiquity, and not to read anything | about the only living, true God I Where do . you find sublimer poetry, or anything better as regards ethics and morals, than in the Bible I And yet these tilings are to be kept I from us! Really, it almost makes one exclaim — Oh, judgment! them art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason !"

From late Australian telegrams we cull I the subjoined items of news:—One man lias been I killed, and three severely scalded, by boiler exj plosions at the mines in Victoria. Wilkic, con- ' victed of the murder of Benson at Paylesfoii has been sentenced to death without mercy. A man named Cliff lias been found guilty w committing a rape on a child at Sandhurst, «"" has been sentenced to death. A wild man haf i been creating a sensation in the neighbourhood [of I'allarat. ~ Eraser the bushranger, who*" j lately released after serving his sentence, *"• ishot and badly wounded while attempting* 0 . I commit a burglary at Mudgec, N.S.W.