The Manawatu Standard PUBLISHED DAILY. Suivant la verite. MONDAY MAY 21, 1883 CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 141, 22 May 1883, Page 2

Manawatu Standard PUBLISHED DAILY. Suivant la verite. MONDAY MAY 21, 1883 CAUSE AND EFFECT.

The ftev Joseph .Cook, of Boston, is one who holds that irreligion is at the bottom of the criminal record of America. He has made public the following statistics, have been since published all over America and England, aud are taken from the Pall Mall Gazette of March 23rd .:— ". Five millions of the fifty millions of the population of the United States over ten years of age cannot read ; six and a quarter cannot write. Of the ten millions of votere of the United States, one m five cannot write his name. The nation is now^ charged with the education- of eighteen millions oi children and youth. Of these, ten and one.*balf millions are enrolled m public and private schools; but the average attendance is only six millions. Seven and a-half millions, or five-twelfths of the whole, are growing up iv absolute ignorance of the English alphabet. At the pr&sent rate of the increase of the number of children not attending school, there will be m ten years, more children m the United btatet oat of schools than m them. In all but five of the States there were enough illiterate voters to hare reversed the result of the last Presidential election m each of these States. It is estiva . . -, -. . ,- -' mated by statisticians of the Government that the total annual profit to the country by the conversion of i'literate. into educated labour, could not be less than £80,000,000 'a year. In 34 cities, from 50 to 82 per ceni. of children of school age are not enrolled at all. In 86 cities, the average attendance is only about two-thirds or! the enrollment, or one«third x>£ ' the population of school age. These 86 cities , contain over eight million inhabitants, or nearly one-sixth of the total population of the country ; but more than a third of their population of school age never enter the school-room at all. In New York there are nearly^ 200;000 children growing up at the mouth of the Hudson without a knowledge of reading and writing. Chicago erfrolls less (hMh hal£r-43| per cent.— of her children m the public schools ;less than a third are habitually m school ; 57 per cent, never attend^ at... a11, and ■of these very few receive instruction m private schools. , St. Louis has a school population of 106,000. Of these, 50,000 are growing up m a savage state, aggravated by contact with the civilised depravity, of the worst parts of city life. Cincinnati has ah average attendance at- school of bujt 27,000, or less than a third ot the whole number of her school population ; while. 51,000 are not enrolled at all. Thirty-two and three-tenths per cent, of the voters m the South are illiterate. Of these, 6907 are colored, and 3Q.3 .are whites. In spite of all the appliances of education, the increase ot illiterate voters m the South \ from .1870 to 1880 was 187,67 1." Is it any wonder that crime, vice, and lawlessness, are the predominant features characteristic of life m America ? And if violence and, outrage prevail to so large an extent , throughput that vast continent now, what will be the outlook m another decade ? Year by year the question of how to inaugurate necessary reforms

and eradicate rampant evils will become one more a>id more difficult of solution, and the longer delayed the mote insup* erable the difficulties m coping with it. Let us hope that New Zealand, will take a lesson by America, and that as her population increases, the foundations of socety will bo firmly based on those enduring pillars, national education, revarence for holy things, the cultivation of the fine arts, the promotion of scientific knowledge, and the inculoation 'of titose cardinal virtnes, loyalty, patriotism, and true religion, as opposed to atheism and infidelity. The secret of England's greatness has been her adherence to the Bible, and America may attribute the lawless state of her society, and the prevalence of crime, to a great extent, to the lack of national education, and the decadence of the religious element as a governing power and guiding principle m the conduct of State affairs.