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Evening Star, Issue 3288, 3 September 1873, Page 2

The most objectionable clauses in the Education Bill now before Parliament, having been so for modified as to permit Provinces adopting it to reject them, there is every prospect of the Bill passing. Should it be brought into operation in any Province, the choice of deuominationalism, or the rejection of it will be left with the Provincial Council. The provisions in the main, so far as educational arrangements are concerned, are pretty much like those of our system in Otago ; which, in spite of denunciations to the contrary, seems to work pretty well. In education, as in other matters of public interest, the evident aim of the Premier is to throw off as much responsibility as possible from the central power. There are advantages in this, but there are also drawbacks. We feel somewhat sorry that the General Government has not reserved to itself power to compel the adoption of the system in those Provinces where no public provision has been made for general education. Notwithstanding what has been said or written to the contrary, it is a monstrous doctrine that parents should be permitted to choose whether a child shall be taught what is necessary for living creditably in society, or be brought up in a state of ignorance, little better than the bullocks he may be employed to drive. Society has a right to insist upon it that no child shall be thus maltreated by the authors of its being. But if this social right exists, provision must be made for supplying the necessary teaching, and the discreditable apathy in some Provinces, and the opposition to just provision for it in others, point to the necessity for some means of compelling a fulfillment of that duty. Perhaps, when the machinery available through the passing of the Bill is provided, the slumbering Provinces may awake to a sense of duty. In those where systems are already in operation we do not think alteration likely, excepting possibly adopting the compulsory clauses. The fate of most permissive measures is, however, to leave matters in statu quo.