THE TENDENCY OF STATE EDUCATION.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1614, 23 April 1879, Page 4

THE TENDENCY OF STATE EDUCATION.

The following article (from "the “ Argus ” ) on the scope and tendency of State Education in Victoria, contains much that is applicable to New Zealand :

Words are the paper money of the intellect and the feelings ; they are not wealth, but they ought to represent wealth. Something of this sort appears to have been in the mind of Bishop Moorhouse when ho delivered a speech recently at a tea meeting at Rosedale, in the course of which ho said something in regard to education well worthy to bo remembered. What ho said was certainly not new, for it is now many years since the London “ Times ” published an article to show what the uneducated country boy knows, which, like the chapter in “Rasselas,” headed “The wants of him that wants nothing,” may be said to have been an exposition of what he ho knows who knows nothing. As Ruskin put it, the electric telegraph is a very useful thing, but what is it good for if people have nothing to say ? In like manner, Bishop Moorhouse said that a boy was taught to write not merely to bo a quill driver, but to expound his thoughts ; so that, we may add, it is very necessary for him to have some thoughts to expound. Again, the bishop suggested as a euro for larrikinism that the Jarrikin should be set to till the soil, to do

some really useful piece of work ; bub the real difficulty is to get your larrikin on the soil, and to keep him there afterwards. Our system of education does not tend to make the youth of the colony _ fond of a country life, or pleased with labor in the fields. Its tendency is undoubtedly in the opposite direction, as the applications for situations and the rush to what is called genteel employments sufficiently show. What f s more, the most popular legislation is precisely of that kind which helps to artificially promote the factory system, and so cause the town to be crowded at the expense of the country. We are, in fact, pushing to extremes a fault which Adam Smith, amongst other things, took particular pains to point out. Whilst he dwelt on the economic value of the division of labor, and showed how it operated even in the manufacture of a pin, he was careful to record his belief that the agricultural worker had far more real information than the mere factory hand. This was, in reality, the foundation of the celebrated article in the “ Times,” in which was shown that the country boy who could nob read knew the habits of birds, beasts, and fishes, the nature of crops, and all that appertained to the varying seasons of the year. In reality, therefore, the country boy was educated as compared with the London lad, who might know how to read and write, but who knew very little besides. Words, to be of value, should, as we have said, represent available wealth, and unless they do so they may bo regarded as of no use, either to the owner or to anybody else. We may even go further, and say that the mere possession of a capacity to acquire words is often fatal to the gain of real information and the use of practical ability. Take, for example, the ordinary education of the daughter of a tolerably well-to-do person. She goes to school, probably, and there learns something of a great many things. She is supposed to master reading, writing, arithmetic, and—of course—music, represented by the playing of some few well-practised showy pieces on the piano. The chances are at least ten to one that when her course of education is complete, when she is what is called “ finished,” she is not able to play a set of quadrilles to which any human being can dance, or to get through the simplest accompaniment without much practice. In a very few years she will not be able to do a rule of three sum, if ever she understood what the rule of three really is, and it may safely be said that the greater portion of her education has vanished never to return. In regard to boys much the same effects are visible, though in not quite so marked a degree, as they have to make use of their learning often in practical life; but, still, much is forgotten, and much of the time spent is wasted. It has been said that Greek and Latin are not so valuable in themselves as for the discipline of mind which their mastery necessitates, and there can be no doubt that there is a great deal of truth in this. We do not doubt that the sons of independent persons, boys who are heirs to wealth, profit much by the discipline they undergo in struggling with the difficulties of the dead languages, but the poor and the middle-class cannot afford to waste so much time, seeing that mental discipline can be otherwise acquired, principally in the learning of things of direct practical utility. Above all, we may doubt whether a state is altogether wise in providing so lavishly as this colony has for the teaching of those things which tend to make the young look more to words than to acts, when one of our most urgent wants is something to induce the rising generation to go out of the towns and take to occupations connected with the cultivation of the soil.

“ We live in deeds, not words,” is an axiom absolutely true, so true that our deeds belie our words continuously. Nobody doubts, of course, that a boy or a girl is all the better for having been taught wise words, and no one would wish to see any portion of the population grow up in ignorance of the elements of knowledge. Rather than that, the state is fully justified in taking the matter in hand, and compelling all parents to educate their children, or get them educated. This is but the start for the race of life, not the race itself. Education is but the means, not the end ; it supplies the tools, and teaches how to use them, but it is not the object of endeavor. Bishop Moorhouae said that he would go in for plough driving as against quill driving as a euro for the evils of larrikinism, but the difficulty is very much greater than the bishop seems to perceive. This question has been practically tested in the United States, where, despite a very liberal system of education, similar evils to what we complain of here abound, and the conclusion reached is that a large proportion of town boys are not fit for country work. They have not been trained to it, many are physically incapable of bearing its strain, and the result is that they make back to the towns, where they can live without the exertion required for success in the country. This is a great and a growing evil. In this colony precisely a similar state of affairs is visible, and shows a marked tendency to become still more common, so that a reform of our manners and customs is quite as important as any reform of our constitution. But we are met with the difficulty as to how any change is to be made. The people are taught that the promotion of factories where they can earn a very moderate sum weekly, and where they never learn a trade completely, is the proper end of all statesmanship, and it is unmistakably the case that those who advocate this view are always the most popular. We have a growing population, which will not adopt a country life, and one question should be how this population shall be prevented increasing. At the present time, all things point to a steady increase in the town population in that particular portion which does not like hard work. Even the mining population is decreasing and deteriorating. We may say then there is another and a higher educational question to be solved. Some day we shall have to revise our definitions, We shall have to reject the term “ education” as solely applied to the acquirement of words, and call only those persons educated who know how to do as well as tell what others have done. No more melancholy spectacle is to be found, we think, than the man or woman possessed of odds and ends of knowledge, but who, in reality, knows nothing thoroughly. Garrick, on being asked what he thought of certain private theatricals, said that he saw only one actor on the stage, and he was a hired supernumerary, for he did know his business. So here, in this muchbelauded colony, with its many things worthy of praise, we want capable persons who know business, even though that business be no higher than that of a “ super.”