MR. PYKE ON EDUCATION AT QUEENSTOWN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 232, 15 August 1873, Page 7

MR. PYKE ON EDUCATION AT QUEENSTOWN.

"■■-Tliere had been, he thought, more talk ori\tßis education question than the present 'position of the country warranted; but as it was a.subject to be dealt with by the Assembly, any candidate should speak clearly and. definitely upon it. He was a believer in secular education, pure and simple, and when he said secular, he meant a system which should banish from the school-room all books,, whether of history or-jpjjierwise, which could by any possibilityf|npart any sectarian bias to the infant mind. He did not consider the,school-room was the proper place, nor the schoolmaster the proper person, to teach religion. Children should imbibe their religious sentiment at the family alter -at the mother's knee, arid"from the" falher's lips ; and when they grow up their parson, priest, or minister was the proper person to complete their religious education While in the present state of the country he could not see any way of altering the present system of education, he would say that if any section of the community could prove— not assert, as assertion was not proof—that they were being unfairly dealt with, he would be the first man to exert himself to have justice done to them, so that all classes should share alike in the benefits of our educational system.