THE SOUTHERN COUNCIL, AND THE EDUCATION ORDINANCE.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 334, 28 July 1849, Page 2

THE SOUTHERN COUNCIL, AND THE EDUCATION ORDINANCE.

To the Editor of the New Zealander, SiR,-—ln your paper of Tuesday last, you administer reproof to the Provincial Council of New Mumter, for having refused to vote any supply in support of State Education. Without committing myself to an unqualified approval of the Educational Ordinance, I agree with you so far as in deeming that refusal a piece of mischievous and wanton folly, the discredit of which wu still farther heightened by the argument! which were vied on the occasion. Had the Council confined itielf to practical, instead of theoretic objections ; had a bankrupt treasury, for iustance, been put forward in excuse, it would have come off with much more credit to itself. But instead of offering lorae plain homespun reason of the sort, those gentlemen must needs attempt to philoiophize, by which they were betrayed, not only into the utterance of much nonssnse, but likewise into exposure of the real feelings by which they were animated. Very young legislators are peculiarly impressionable to what they are pleased to term enlarged and liberal views, as being for the most part plausible, and, on account of their usual indefin>teneB3, by far the least troublesome to maintain. "Whenever they feel themselves unable, through ignorance of detail, to argue a question upou its own merit f they find it convenient to fall back upon the assertion of some vague principle, or outline doctrine, which any man able to string words together, by help ol a little slipshod reading, can make a shift to support. Like the old schoolmen, they reason a priori, rather than a posteriori, because actual knowledge is of necessity in the latter mode of proceeding. That class of views may be exemplified by circles in the water, which become indistinct proportinnal'y as they enlarge,

Is there not likewise something cruelly salfish in refusing to others the advantages of that public education, which these unfledged politicians are now a lone in the enjoyment of? For they ate moat assuredly at school themselves, at the public expense, « trying their 'prentice hands," and practising legiilation on the Colony. , _. It might, however, have been as well, Sir, on your part, to have reminded your readers of what might not necesiarily have suggested itself to fill of them, that the Southern Province is by no means implicated in the absurdities of its Council ; tliat the opinion! of the settlers are not represented by councillors wh© have been chosen in opposition to the wishes of the settlers, and entrusted with powers that nearly every man of influence and real ability had already declined to exercise. It is possible, that had the Province been polled, a very different decision might have been arrived at. I have one more observation to make. What can be themeaning of the following sentence in Governor Greywlespatch relative to the Ordinance in question : — " In a country circumstanced as New Zealand is, where the scholars would be either the children of heathen parents, or of colonists, &c." We all know that by far the greater number of native scholirs would be born of Christian parents. Not to mention that the heathen natives would be least inclined to take advantage of the provisions of that Ordinance, their namber, in the vicinity of European settlements, appears to 'be comparatively small. In the district of Auckland, the propoition of Christian to Heathen natives, given by the last report of the Commissioners of Police, is as 1443 to 5. Although the accuracy of these numbers be more than doubtful, the great numerical preponderance of the one body over the other is sure. What the real object of his Excellency could have been, in making a statement which implies the contrary, I am at a loss to imigine. Metoikos. [We must say we think the latter part of our ingenious correspondent's letter rather hyper-critical. To us it seem* clear that the Governor intended the word "heathen" to apply to the aboriginal population, whether they had been bi ought to embrace Christianity or not. This view is corroborated by the preceding sentence of the despatch, " this system of education was izitended to be applied either to the children of an almost barbarous race, or to the children of hardy co'onists," &c~thas, in both sentences, dividing the population into the two classes of Natives ani Coloiiisri.— • Ed.] ______