MORALS AND EDUCATION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 260, 30 July 1919, Page 8

MORALS AND EDUCATION

Sir,—The points I desired to make were (1) that if there is anything wrong with our education system, then the first step to right any errors in practice and results is to raise the teaching standard, nnd that cau best be done to start with by increased salaries and better housing accommodation for teachers; (2) that successive Ministers of Education (including the Hon. J. A. Hanan) have failed to apply the right remedy although expressin" dissatisfaction; (3) that our education system—free, secular, and compulsory— has raised the moral standards of our people.

llr. Burton's contention is contained in this sentence: "One might 'reasonably have expected that fifty years of free, secular, and compulsory education would have sufficiently' improved ' the public taste to make it impossible for such a large section of our people to delight in debasing pictures." He went further and said: "If our education system fails to beget a Love of these- things—goodness, truth, and beauty—it must'be pronounced a failure." And if our people had been properly educated (i.e., I suppose, in this spiritualising sense), they "could not tolerate vulgar and demoralising amusements,"

x These contentions I combated first incidentally as fat as 'Mr. Burton is concerned, and then particularly. Education had, I observed, diversified the tastes, widened the outlook, and imparted higher standards of life and living among our people: What authority is there for this? Sir Eobert Stout, as Chief Justice, has rcceutly quoted figures to show that all forms of crime have declined from 44 per 1000 of the population in IBS 7 to 29.9 'in -1912, which could only ho .explained, he' said, by our national system of education. Mr. Justice Edwards, Mr. Justice Hosking, and Mr. Justice Cooper have made similar observations in respect to the lessening of crime in New Zealand; and yet Mr. Burton and Bible-in-schools persons say our education system is defective >n that our people "delight in debasing pictures" and "vulgar and demoralising amusements." 1 have nut seen these debasing pictures, and I asked Mr; Burton to tell me where thev were. He tells me in his reply that I ain a bad logician! I ask Mr. Burton to say where the "vulgar and demoralising amusements" arc, and he says I am guilty of misrepresenting an opponent! Mr. Burton says "we are worse than our forefathers," and when I ask him to say wherein in one particular we are worse., lie replies by saying Mr. Sievwright makes Pharisaical declarations that nro cant of the worst kind! When I ask where the "morally objectionable him" is to be found, .Mr. Burton replies by saying 6omo remark of mine is "positively repulsive." And this is argument from Him who discovers bad logic, cant, and Phariseeism in others! But if what Mr. Burton says is true of our people, then I say it is but a fleeting and ephemeral phase, and the solid tact as'disclosed by the Chief Justice is the real effect of our education system after nearly fifty years of operation, and not what Mr. Burton implies. Some people who say our education svstem is not religious only mean to say that it is not sectarian. My contention is that our system of education is religious in that, it is not sectarian; and any system of education that raises tha standard of living, meanwhile all forms of criminality decrease, must have an elevating moral influence. And is that not an object of religion itself? All men may be religious' and not go to church, but all men who go to church are not necessarily religious. Judged like the .tree by its fruits" our System of education" has raised our moral and living standards. The trouble is we require more and higher education, for, in my opinion, the safety of this Dominion lies in these troublesome times in the still greater enlightenment of our democracy. —I am, etc., J. D. SIEVWKIGHT.