DENOMINATIONAL EDUCATION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 125, 21 July 1871, Page 5

DENOMINATIONAL EDUCATION.

The following petition to the Speaker and Members of the House of Assembly, protesting against the introduction of the denominational system of education into this Province has been handed to us for pul lication. We need hardly say that we endorse the prayer which the petition contains, believing that the effort at denominationalism could and would only result' in confusion worse confounded," and eventually abolish general or rather national education from our midst. We have not the slightest objection to children being brought up in the faith of their parents, but when the number of different creeds is considered it is manifestly impossible that this can be done by and at the expense of the State. All th e State can be expected to <lo is to plac e

a system of sound secular education within reach of the masses which should give offence to none. This has been done, and has worked well in Otago, and we should not wish to see the system superseded by anything of a denominational character. ''Let well aloae "is our motto in this matter. In connection with this subject a meeting of the School Committee was held at the schoolhouse on Wednesday last, when it was resolved that Mi*. It. Rohs, the secretary, be requested to obtain signatures in support of the prayer of the petition :

To the Hon. the Speaker aud Members of General Assembly. The petition of the undersigned parents and guardians of children attending the Public Schools of the Province of Otago Humbly sheweth— That your petitioners' children have been enjoying for many years the inestimable blessing of a thoroughly sound, liberal, intellectual, and moral education, under the existing Nation system of Education. That your petitioners, althougu belonging to vai'ious denominations, have never had any cause or shadow of ground for complaint, and do not believe that there has been the remotest attempt at any teaching of sectarian doctrines peculiar to any one church, in the Public Schools of Otago. That your petitioners would str jngly oppose any attempt to alter the present National system of Education into a Denominational one, as such a course would in a great measure destroy' the efliciency of the existing schools; would prevent the possibility of schools beiup maintained in outlying districts, and would be calculated to continue in the rising generation dissentions and differences on purely sectarian grounds, thus preventing to a great extent the cultivation of what ought to be aimed at—the establishment of one grand feeling of New Zealand Nationality. Your petitioners would also oppose such a change, as it would be a retrograde step in legislation, the universal tendency being in all free countries to advance towards a National system of Education, and they would point to the fact that eren G-reafc Britain is fast emerging from the trammels of sectarianism to a system of Education similar to that already established in Otago. May it therefore please your Honorable House, that in passing any Educational measure you will preserve intact to this Province of Otago the Education system as at present established. And your petitioners will ever pray.