PROSPECTUS OF THE WESLEYAN COLLEGE AND SEMINARY, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 316, 9 June 1849, Page 4

PROSPECTUS OF THE WESLEYAN COLLEGE AND SEMINARY, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND.

The absence of effective Schools in the Colonies has undoubtedly been one of the hardships put to the account of emigration. The faithful Missionary has, indeed, ever regarded it a matter of imperative duty to multiply facilities of instruction, both for the settler and for the native, to the utmost limit of his resources. But Schools of the higher class can hardly be created by his unaided efforts, and, if not supplied by the talent and enterprise of private individuals, must be established and sustained by confederated counsel and action. The "Wesley an College and Seminary is the result of such a combination, and is intended to bear some part in furnishing the means of superior education to the children of settlers in this, or any adjacent, country. The necessity of such an Institution has yearly become more apparent, and has been urgently called for by the peculiar circumstances of many Mission Families. The children in some of these were growing up amid idolatry, war, and, at least occasional, j cannibalism. In others they were indeed ! usually exempt from such direful spectacles, but they were acquiring little preparation for the pursuits of the busy world, into which they must soon be thrown. One common disadvantage also pressed on all : in that a multitude of miscellaneous and ever-recurring duties left the parents no time to bestow that systematic training, for which they looked in vain to any other quarter, the want of which, however, would greatly depress the fortunes of their children and diminish their qualifications for usefulness. It is hoped that this Establishment will remedy these evils, and enable those settlers who desire a good education for their children, more easily than aforetime, to obtain it. The System of Instruction will include such as is most obviously adapted to meet the exigencies of actual life, to teach the usages of mercantile business, and to open the way to all the treasuries and all the refreshments of Science. The usual branches of Classical, Mathematical, and Commercial Education will be diligently cultivated. Particular attention will be paid to the study of English, its elements, laws, and literature — to Reading and Writing — and to the acquisition of habitual celerity and correctness in the application of Arithmetic. The importance of General Information, and of a familiarity with at least the great facts of Geography and History will by no means be forgotten ; and wherever it appears that a pupil's .future employment is decided, an effort will be made to prepare him for it. In the department of Femate Education, no pains will be spared to make it effective, and in every sense appropriate. The discipline of the Institution will be based on the persuasion that the intellect is awake in the child, and that the business of education is not so much to distend the memory, as to exercise and to guide the reason and the judgment. It will be based also on the persuasion that the conscience, before which the sternest ruffian quails, cannot be dormant or inefficient in the child. Hence, much will be entrusted to the play of the moral feelings, and the sense of what is honourable and right. We would educate the man— not the memory, not the intellect only, but also the affections and the conscience ; and here especially we depend much on the blessing of Him, whose work the mind is, who has access to all its secret mechanism, and whose co-operation is vouchsafed in answer to prayer. The School cannot be exactly like the Family, but it will be our ambition to aim at so much resemblance as we can possibly achieve. Avoiding all that is Monastic, we would make the Domestic our model — trusting that our Pupils will be destined for English homes, and not for cells, and convents, and ascetic constraints ; but most assiduously would we encourage the affection, the purity, and all the other inestimable virtues, which are at once the ornament and the defence of Christian Homes. The book of Religious teaching, will be, chiefly, the Bible. The Wesleyan Catechism will also be used, where no wish to the contrary is signified. It is a concise and convenient digest of Scriptural Doctrines, in which the most scrupulous would not easily find either novelty or bigotry. As, however, we aim at nothing wider than the Bible, so also at nothing narrower than the Protestant faith. We think, indeed, that no section of the Christian Church can, with less sacrifice of principle, insist on what is Catholic and common to all, and depress to its proper littleness that which is accidental and not of the essence of spiritual religion and saving truth. Be this as it may, the vocation of the School, as of the Pulpit, we are persuaded to be, not nearly so much to win proselytes for this or the other " ism, 11 as to exalt that Divine truth which not only illumines and enlarges the mind, but hallows, ennobles, and transforms the man. Only under the guidance and influences of this " greater light/ can the education of human beings be commensurate with their dignity as creatures, whose destination is infi_nitely higher than merely to occupy the narrow

interval between the cradle and the sepulchre with things perishable and transient, and whose education, whether good or bad, is, and must be, education for eternity. Walter Lawry, Chairman, Thomas Buddle, Secretary, Joseph Homer Fletcher, Principal. N.B. — A Scale of Terms, which it is believed will be considered very moderate, and -. notification of the probable period of or*4T ; shall be speedily forthcoming.