EDUCATION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 471, 28 April 1871, Page 3

EDUCATION.

"We quote the following remarks on the Education question from the Otago Daily Times: —At any rate, Dr. Moran, and men of his stamp—and we are sorry to say that there are many belonging to other creeds besides his throughout the colony' whose acts betoken the same spirit, though not so boldly' proclaimed— seem to consider that they have, ex ojficio, a special mission to ‘overturn,’ to pull down and destroy the goodly edifice of our Educational scheme, in order that they may build up systems over which they shall reign supreme ; over which the State, the foster parent of the child, shall have no control, and in which the instructors of youth, the teachers shall not occupy the elevated and independent position which the successful exercise of the office requires, but shall bo the mere servants and thralls of their clerical superiors. There have not been wanting tokens, in the Ecclesiastical Courts, at least of the Church of England, that a strong effort will be made in the Assembly to mould any Educational measures that may he introduced into the denominational type ; and what is this hut aiming a thrust, it may he a deathwound, at our highly prized, because well tested, National system 1 Wo counsel the people of Otago to he on their guard against the insidious protestations ot regard for education which these newly-awakened advocates for the enlightenment and tuition of the people profess. Where they have been in the year’s that are gone, that they now come so boldly to the front to claim the leadership in matters educational 1 ? What have their vaunted Churchjychools done in ‘the wretched past’ for those parts of New Zealand where they have been free to flourish as they migiit without any State Education to interfere with them? Let the reports laid before tho Assembly in its last session on tho state of education in every province but Otago tell how utterly they have failed in overtaking tho wants of tho community. Wo hear a great deal now, when tho public aro awakening to tho

matter, about tho sacred responsibility committed to the Church to educate its youth. Where has this responsibility been felt, or so realised as to be acted upon in the past, that now, when the State parent has awoke to the cry of her offspring . perishing tor lack of knowledge, mother Church should step in and plead her sacred duty as a ground of preference 1 vVo may be wrong, and we may he judging uncharitably, but we confess we have little faith in new converts. They never work quietly, and along with others. They are always loud and blatant in their protestations of regard for the truth ; but it is solely as it is represented in their particular expression of it. They are never satisfied with what their fellow believers are doing, but are always fault-finding, and endeavoring to pull down that they may reconstruct after their own mode), and what does this model denominational system mean I It means simply State aid to religion. It means that the community shall be taxed for the support of a number of indifferent schools, where one good school would suffice It means that priestly or clerical domination, that most hurtful and cramping of all influences, be it Protestant or Roman Catholic, shall extend it« numbing chiding blight over the intellectual energies and independence of action of all our teachers. It is to retrograde behind the age we live in. It is to ignore the colossal stiides of advancement which m erica has taken mainly through her glorious system of national educa tion and to relegate our intellectual standpoint as a colony, back to the platform occupied by Britain and other European nations, on which the cobwebs of ancient abuses and prejudices bang thick and hoary with age.