EDUCATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 37, 7 October 1871, Page 11

EDUCATION.

Probably there are more than ninetenths of our readers who never see Hansard, or visit the strangers’ gallery. Were they to do so, they would be quite surprised to find what long-winded speeches are delivered in the House of Representatives on all conceivable subjects. The heads of most of the members are the store-rooms for all kinds of second-head articles, and Hansard is the vehicle by which they are sought to be conveyed to the public. By far the longest and most varied speeches which been given this session were made on the second reading of ihe Education Bill. They are better than usual. Some of them would have done no discredit to the House of Commons, and might just as well have been made there for that matter. Some few of the speeches show an acquaintance with local wants, but unfortunately none of these rise above commonplace. On the whole, the speeches were too general, and in scarcely any instance applicable to the peculiar circumstances and requirements of this colony. The very reason why certain systems of education have been found suitable in certain countries in Europe, is, per se, a sufficient one why they would not be suitable for New Zealand. Decidedly the best speech was that made by Mr Fitzherbert. It has both depth and clearness. Bunny’s has the latter quality, hut it is very shallow, and lacks comprehensiveness. Bryce made a very good speech, and showed that he understood not only what he was talking about, but what was wanted. Pearce, Andrew, and Johnston spoke well, but chiefly in favor of aided schools; and Hunter, who could have said a great deal more in much less time, and in much less compass, was discreetly silent. He did not see the use of rethreshing so much well-threshed straw. Our past silence on the question has been the result of a similar motive.

It appears to us that most of the speakers, without knowing it, over-esti-mate the importance of what we may call day-schooling, uhder-estimate the education at the fire-side, and at the mother’s knee, and lose sight altogether of that to be obtained at the Sunday or night-school. Those of them who take

up the religious, or, more accurately, the denominational side of the question, appear to have persuaded themselves that there are no means of children acquiring knowledge except at a dayschool, and that during school hours. None of them have a word to say, even incidentally, in favor of reading-rooms, theatres, museums, mutual improvement classes, public libraries, choral societies, botanic gardens, cricket grounds, scientific institutions, or popular lectures. They have all overlooked the educational effects, on the national character, of situation and climate, laws, usages, and customs. Most of them appear to be totally oblivious of the fact that New Zealand is not England, nor Prussia, nor France; but, on the contrary, a very young and sparsely settled country, where there are but very few poor people, or indeed people of any kind ; but where schools, owing to the scattered character of the population cannot, in rural districts, if deprived of aid from without, be efficiently supported. It is strange that this most important fact should have escaped attention altogether. There are schools well attended, that could not be supported by a rate of £1 per house, or by quadruple that amount. Then why this maximum, and why this equal rate, so monstrously unequal in its effects ? Has it not been this uniform rate, which, to save the pockets of the wealthy, was never to exceed £1 per house, that has prevented educational rates being levied except in one or two districts of the province ? And why should dogmatic instruction be mixed up with the multiplication table ? Elementary instruction, whether with or without religious dogmas, does not deserve the name of education. A child’s character is formed rather at home, or in the playground, than in the school-house. Scriptural knowledge, in a Christian country, appears to us to be a necessary branch of school instruction ; but we do not think much of any religious opinions, feelings, and habits acquired amidst the din and discipline of the day school. The late Professor Lawrence, in one of his famous lectures to the College of Surgeons, makes the profound remark, that the sublime truths of the soul’s immortality, or of the resurrection of the dead, are not to he discovered amongst the blood and filth of the dissecting room. Nor was the common day school the place where the Apostles acquired a knowledge of the sublime truths of Christianity, or in which they and their successors imparted that knowledge to others. “ To teach religion,” says Carlyle, “ the first thing needful, and also the last and the only thing, is finding of a man who has religion.” And, further on, he asks, “ How is that last priceless element, by which education becomes perfect, to be superadded ? The unwise, who think themselves pious, answer aloud, ‘ by this method, by that method,’ long argue of it to small purpose. Avaunt, ye gainsayers! is darkness and ignorance of the alphabet necessary for you ? Reconcile yourselves to the alphabet, or depart elsewhither!” To learn to read is not to acquire religious knowledge, but it is one of the means by which it may be acquired. Albeit for this or any other purpose there is danger of it being over-estimated. Most people have probably read Macaulay’s remarks on the stupid observation made by Dr Johnson, to the effect that the boasted Athenians were barbarians, as the mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing. “ Because,” says Macaulay, “ it was by means of hooks that people acquired almost all their knowledge in the society with which lie was acquainted, he concluded, in defiance of the strongest and clearest evidence that the human mind can be cultivated by means of books alone.” But Macaulay points out that the Athenians had other means of acquiring knowledge. He saw the plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes, the paintings of Phidias and Zeuxis, and knew by heart the choruses of Eschylus. What is of more importance, he was a legislator, conversant with high questions of alliance, revenue, and war ; he was a soldier, trained under a liberal and generous discipline ; he was a judge, compelled every day to weigh the effects of opposite arguments. “ These things,” observes Macaulay, “ were in themselves an education, an education eminently fitted, not indeed to form exact or pro-

found thinkers, but to give quickness to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to the expression, and politeness to the manners.” Such an education as this is not, we will venture to submit, to be acquired at a common day school. The Athenians, moreover, was not without that oral teaching by which, and not by school instruction, a knowledge of the truths of Christianity have been spread, and by which tliose of even physical science are best unfolded. “ Look,” said Pericles, “ at our temples, and the statues which embellish them ; go down to Piraeus, observe the long walls ; visit the arsenals, and the docks of our three hundred ships; frequent our theatres, and appreciate the surpassing excellence of our ports, and the taste and splendour of our scenic representations ; walk through the markets, observe them filled with the productions of every part of the world; and when the daily practical power of your city, with which you are enamored, appears to you vast, learn, and remember well, that men courageous, and having a

knowledge of their duties, and endued with that sense of shame which is the guard of virtue and the spur of noble actions, brought about these things.” It was thus, and not by school instruction, or by reading books, that the Athenians became the best educated, and most polished people in the world. Shakespeare and Burns, Brindley and Arkwright, Franklin and Stevenson, Watt and Fulton, Cromwell and Washington, were not college-bred, or remarkable for their book-learning. There are other means of acquiring an education besides those which the school or college furnishes. “ She wants capacity,” said a governess to the wealthy and fond mother of a very dull child. “ Buy it her, by all means,” .replied she, “I don’t care what money it costs.” But alas, capacity cannot be bought. No schooling will supply the deficiency where it is not; but we do not deny that it will improve it where it is. Because school instruction will not accomplish all that we desire, we do not decline to accept those benefits it is capable of conferring. There are two classes of men who always feel disposed to estimate learning as better than house or land. They are those who have got nothing else to boast of, and those who feel the want of it. Learning, of that value, is not to be acquired at our common schools, nor anywhere else by ordinary scholars. We know more than one man who cannot read or write, and who has pinched himself in food to give his children a good education. They are now grown up, and in point of intelligence they are inferior to their father. He is in fact in this and almost every other respect much their superior. But, it must not be understood from what we have said, that we are not anxious to see schools established, and the Education Bill become law. We only wish to guard the public from expecting from the former whnt they cannot impart, and from the latter what it is incapable of affording.