ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 15, 6 May 1871, Page 11

ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION.

Amongst the many important subjects which ought to engage the earnest attention of the Provincial Council during its ensuing session, that of the elementary instruction of youth should not be excluded. It is true that the Ministry has promised to introduce a general measure on the subject in the next session of the General Assembly; but it is to be feared that it will not be of that comprehensive and thorough character which is required, unless the General Government is backed by public opinion, and urged forward, if necessary, by a pressure from without. The question is beset with difficulties, but they are not insuperable. The most formidable of those in this colony will be found to be of a political rather than of a religious character. The Premier, himself, probably believes that ifc is one which can be better and more satisfactorily dealt with by the several provinces than by the General Legislature, and it is possible that a similar opinion will be found to be held by the majority of the members from Otago and Canterbury. Hence the necessity of our Provincial Council expressing its views on the subject in order to assist in counteracting the influences which will be brought to bear on the Government from the opposite direction. There is no matter on which the people of this province are more unanimous than on this of elementary instruction. "With scarcely an exception, they believe that it is one which does not exclusively concern any particular locality, or any particular province, but the whole colony; and, therefore, it is a matter which should be dealt wi*t& by the General Assembly during its ensuing session. A resolution to this effect, passed by the Provincial Council, would have beneficial results. Seeing how unsatisfactory is the present state of education in this province, what we ask the Council to do is the least it can do under the circumstances. # It will have the satisfaction of knowing that in the adoption of this course it will be supported by public opinion, and in feeling that such support, in this instance, has not been purchased

by the sacrifice of a principle, or the shirking of a duty. We cannot help thinking that this education question, in this colony at all events, would be shorn of half its difficulties, if elementary instruction were substituted for the term education, as the latter means something else and something more, than what its advocates require from the State. They do not ask it to assist in forming a child's mind, habits, and religious principles ; all they ask it to do is to provide the means and the machinery which will enable every child to read and write with ease and facility, and to "acquire such secular information and discipline, as will permit him to become, in after years, an intelligent and useful citizen of a free commonwealth. There is no more reason why religious instruction should be given in a Government school-house than in a military drill-shed. There are other times and places better suited for the purpose. And were this not the case, a child cannot be taught religious truths at the same time that he is learning to do a sum in arithmetic, or is being initiated into the mysteries of the goose-step. As, therefore, some other time must be chosen, why not some other place ? This question is not beset with the difficulties which it is in England ; but even here attempts have been made to prevent children having the means of acquiring elementary instruction unless the State also furnishes the means for the acquisition of something else. Those who object to this being done do not necessarily think that such additional information is not desirable in itself; they only think that it is undesirable, under the circumstances, that the State should impart it. All the arguments that can be urged in favor of imparting religious instruction in State schools, can be urged with much more force in favor of State support for religion. Much can be said in favor of both propositions ; but as in most Protestant countries a State religion finds at the present day but few advocates, so also the advocates for religious instruction being given in State schools are daily diminishing in number, and even in England they are surrendering one stronghold and then another, and most eventually give up the conflict as helpless.

But, as we have said, the obstacles to the establishment of a general system of elementary instruction in this colony are rather political than religious, and arise chiefly from the division of the colony into provinces having separate Governments and distinct interests. Viewing the question from a provincial and not from a colonial standing point they do not see that as citizens of one country it is as necessary that all the youth of the colony should be educated as it is of those of their own particular province. Our objection to a centralized system, when it prevents or supersedes local action, in matters of purely local concern, is as strong as that entertained by the most ultra of these provincialists; but this is not a mere provincial question, not one which exclusively concerns any particular locality, but is pre-eminently one of general concern. A general measure, however, need not obstruct or supersede individual effort and local action, and might be so framed as to have the opposite effect. It could stimulate the one, and render more imperative the other. The General Legislature can provide by law the means and the machinery for securing the elementary instruction of the young throughout the colony, but those means can be administered, and that machinery be worked by local bodies; the central authority only retaining a general supervision, with power to provide against provincial or local neglect and mismanagement. Under such an arrangement all the advantages of a centralized and localized system could be, secured while the evils inherent in each wou}d be neutralized.

Any scheme of elementary instruction provided by the State requires, however, not only to be secular in character, and general in its application, but it must also be compulsory. It may be open to whether the State should compel the payment of school rates, but once admit that it is its duty to do so, and the principle of. compulsory instruction is acknow-

ledged. If the State enforces the payment of rates for the support of schools it ought to enforce attendance at such schools. To secure the object desired the first is less necessary than the last, less justifiable, and nothing like so efficient. If the first course is persisted in, and the last neglected, bachelors and others will be taxed for the elementary instruction of those children who would most probably receive such instruction without any tax being imposed, while those children for whose more especial benefit the tax was levied would not on this account be sent to school. Men are compelled to do many things which they would not do if not compelled; and this matter of the education of their children is one of all others which the State should insist upon not being neglected. It is less arbitrary to compel a father to have his children sent to school than to compel that father, when perhaps advanced in years, to attend military drill and learn the use of arms, though he might have never handled a musket, and could ill afford the time necessary for acquiring the art. If compulsion can be used in the latter case, most certainly it ought not to be withheld in the former.