OUR SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 7, 20 March 1911, Page 9

OUR SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

That doughty defender of our free, secular and compulsory system of education, Professor Mackenzie, has published in pamphlet form two of his public addresses on the subject, under the title "Defence of the Secular Solution." The professor, in championing the secular position, displays the wealth of argument and knowledge of his subject one expects to find in a scholar of his standing. He traces the progress of the secularisation of education in Great Britain, and predicts a victory within a few years for what is known as "the secular solution" of sectarian and similar difficulties. He is frank and outspoken, and accuses the churches of sweating their teachers and clergy in the name of education and religion, and of using wealth derived from unfairly exploited labour for doubtful political and ecclesiastical purposes. Summing up on this point, Professor Mackenzie says : — It is high time that educational institutions run by Catholics and other churches were subject to our Labour laws.. We live in an age when it is absolutely unnecessary— ay, a positive scandal—that any part of education should be left to private charity or exploited labour. The days of charity and its handmaid mendacity in religion and education are tapering to a close. It is beyond the pale of controversy that where chvirches have attempted to control and organise education the great majority of the people have been very mdilferently educated or hopelessly illiterate. The pamphlet will serve a very useful purpose m supplying a fund of facts and arguments for those taking part in a defence of our State system of education. We can commend the booklet as a fearless attempt of a liberal mind to prevent sectarian .bigotry from working its wicked will on the plastic minds of the youth of this fair young land.