"PHYLAX" AND EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1247, 2 October 1911, Page 5

"PHYLAX" AND EDUCATION.

Sir,—l cannot imagine a more c::mplote surrender of his case than that made by your anonymous correspondent "Phylax' in your issue of September 23. That his surrender is ail unconscious to himself only makes it the more pitiable. In your issue of 2 he professed to bowa'l the increasing corruption of good morals in our Dominion, which he attributed, of course, to tho secular system of education in vogue in our primary Stato schools. When confronted with my statistics to the contrary in your issue of September 9, which prove, as far as figures can do. that his charge against Ins fellow colonists is utterly imaginary, he makes no attempt to grapple with these alverso facte, but only complains they are ; not tho figures ho wants, like a fretful child cryiug for the moon. Apparently he is quite unconscious of tho fact that until ho has proved my figure; to bo wrong he cannot, as a man of character, persist in his charges, or complain that Sir Robert < Stout's our present system i of education lias resulted ill tho diininu- i tion of serious crime—has not been sub- i stantiatcd. It has been_ substantiated, t and that by the stern logic of figures, in 1 my leter in your issue of September 9, as ' previously and more fully in your issuo i of Decemlwr 29 last, aud for the third i time .1 c.hallcnco him to -.how that it has ; not. Ami under these cireums'ianct's T i lu.iy perhaps be allowed to say that it is i not tic £axt eilier of a goad citizcn ot a JL 1 !

good Uhrislian r to'slamler gratuitously tho land 0110 lives in, as it is certainly not ttio engn of a fcalthy mind to tako a pessimistic view of New Zealand society when the evidence is all the other way. Anyway, as a rational being, "Phyliix" must first refuto my cvidonce.

lii'lecd, my opponent is particularly unfortunate in oil his arguments. Jlo appealed to the testimony of tho Judges m his favour, but was only, able to quote ono of them. On tlio other hand, in addition to tho tlireo I quoted in my last 1 otter, who congratulated their respective districts on tlio diminution of crime therein, as shown in the criminal calendar, I am now - ablo to quote three more inslamces to the same eft'ect, all taken from the newspaper.-) of the Inst fortnight. Thus, at. Gts borne, Mr. Justice Chapman, called attention to "the absence of sexual offence.?, and to tho fact of the whole calendar being a comparatively light one," whilst it is to be further' noted that oven of this light calendar iJnx'O cases were subsequently struck out in conscP",?'!? 0 °£ . tlle (''"and Jury findins "no ml. Again, at Wanganui, Mr. Justice hdw-ards is repored as congratulating that oistrjct on the lightness of the calendar j whilst at Mastorton "Phylax" suffers worst of all, inasmuch as tho Chief .Tustico on an-iving there found there was not a single accused person to be brought before him, and that after an interval of no less than, six months from the previous sitting of the Court! Poor "Phylax"! He shoiud really throw up his brief, as he evidently has 110 caae at all. If it were right to spook of suoli serious matters humorously, ono might almost say that an epidemic of seems to have set in, fl.iiucjpaling tlio millenjuuivi, and refuting all clcncal slanderers of our glorious secular Education Act (1877). Ono would think thait oven an auonvmous correspondent must feel some emotion, of humiliation at being thus overwhelmingly defeatoil. Aapoleon at Waterloo was notliin" tc it.—l am, etc., JOHN GAMMELL. - Soatoun Heights, September 25, 191 L