SECULAR EDUCATION DEFENCE LEAGUE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1011, 29 December 1910, Page 2

SECULAR EDUCATION DEFENCE LEAGUE.

: Sir,—l notice that one or more of your correspondents credit me with ■' saying that rcnl knowledge and learning have advanced, ill spito of, rather than with the aid of, the Church.- 'It is possible that your reporter credited'me with such a statement in his summary.. What I did Saj—and it was. said after paying ; a tribute to the churches, for valuable educational services in tho past —was: "Many people—enlightened peopl-a too—do not; hesitate to affirm that real knowledge and learning'have advanced, for some time,"' father iii' spite" of. than with : the .aid ..of the churohos. ■ I feel- certain. iii full,', no ,churc]i could have reasonable caiisg tor complaint;—l am,' 'etc.', HUGH MACKENZIE. ■ December 26. ' ■

! Sir,—Your issue of ; December -22, contains a violent , though - confused attack Von. our neivly-tormed Education; League and . on Professor MacKenzio and myself-in;particulu'.. The writer signed himself "l'hylax," which .is. probably however'only &■ new name'for a very old antagonist, at least so'l judge by the. extraordinary English thq letter exhibits. .My critic, is very angry that I and. others should have tnn temerity to form a new Ed tica ton-Defence League. ,Hc, seems to think it very unkind of ' tho policeman to interfere with-the professional operations of the burglar, as.no doubt it is—from the burglar's point,, of;' view. He has even ventured !u give a history of a former Wellington Education Deforce league, but a history so inaccurate as. to suggest that tho writer must have fanned his stylo < n ancient ecclesiastical historians abne. I was a member of that ; league, and attended all its cominittoo meetings, but am quite unaware of any quarrels that arose amongst us, such as "Phyhx" speaks of—quarrels .which he says at last put an. end to the' league's existence. As a matter of fact the league ■ died out because its object was accomplished, viz., the defeat of "the clericals" (1805) in'their attempt to pass a Referendum, Bill on tho subjeot' of religious instruction in national schools. He really must not confuse us .with a Council of Bishops, such as the one which, met at Ephesus in the year 419 A.D., and at which a bishop of. Alexandria kicked and trdmpled to death a .brother bishop who had ventured to differ from'him'in opinion. See Dean Stan--ley's "Eastern Church," p. 71 (new/edition). But thero is little use in mutual recrimination. If "Phylax" really wants to do soiiiothing for his party let him attack, my statistics. The secular system is that which noiv obtains, and tho Dominion would bo very badly,advised to change it without cause. Let "Phylax". show cause.it lie can;.that.will be much better than! merely barking at me. .He does not like;my specch at the founding of the iie\v league, at least, not tho part of it reported in the newspapers. Here is the substance of n ■ part . of it,., that : .was . not reported in tho newspapers; let him see if ho likes that any better... The chief Argument, I said, urged by the clerical party in its attack oh. our schools is that {hey do nothing for, the scholars ethically, nothing lo build up high character" in boys and girls. Well, we say, that is not true. AVe say, that every efficiency school; whether, secular or ecclesiastical, is necessarily a nursery of virtue, a restraint tovice. And wo go further, and affirm that Government statistics- nrovo this to be

true of our own schools, secular though they be. A. whole generation has now elapsed sinco our schools were first made secular; if, therefore, these institution:! have aii evil influence on the young ethically, as our opponents insinuate, evil results should be beginning to show them-£elves-nou' in our community, our criminals should he increasing in number out of proportion to onr increase ,in population, and our statistics of crime.should show this. But the very contrary of this is found to be the case; the Dominion is not retrograding ethically, it is not even stationary; it has made an advance in righteousness, and a great advance during the last generation, the stern logic of figures proves it. Thus:—

The ratio of 48.1 to G2.G is three fourths (nearly), and hence it seems impossible to deny ttint the criminality of the Dominion is only three-fourths of what it was a generation ago, before the Secular Education Act (1577) came into existence. "Phylax" coitfiiins (quite inaccurately) that we boast of statistics without producing them. At auy rate, here they are now, let. him unset them if he can. If, on the other hand, he cannot do so, then it is plain that, could we only maintain in . our Dominion the present ratio of improvement ethically,' in three generations more the criminal class would havo disappeared from our community altogether. How, under these circumstances, I ask, can any rational being call upon us to chango our present satisfactory system of education or put ourselves again under clerical rule, with its awful ignorance, superstition, tyranny, and barbarism, as wo sec it, full blown, in Spain to-day 2 I. need only add that my figures refer to serious crime alone, that dealt with in our Supreme and Districts Courts, and are compiled from the volumes entitled ."New Zealand Statistics." The calculations are my own.—l ani, etc., . v JOHN GAMMELL.

I; . 1 lll : . 1874 341,860 191 1875 375,850 257 — 187G 3D!),075 ' 249 - Average 372,263.6 233.3 62.0 1905 882,462 435 — 1906 908,726 414 - 1907 929,484 ,460 - Average 906,890.6 436.3 48.1