EARL RUSSELL ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4565, 6 November 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

EARL RUSSELL ON EDUCATION.

The Messrs. Longman have issued s sixteenpage pamphlet by Lord Kussell, entitled "Some Further Thoughts on National Education for the United Kingdom." The great defect of the present system of education, his Lordship says, appears to be the want of regular attendance. The period of attendance should be fixed by the Committee of the Privy Council, and should be enforced by penalties in case of disobedience. The Committee of Council should provide the order in which reading, writing, and arithmetic should be taught. It should also prescribe simple lessons in the history of Great Britain and of Europe. Lessons in geography should likewise be given. The division of manual work and instruction appears to the noble earl one of the most important tasks that the Committee of Council has to discharge. In manufacturing towns there has been for many years on the part of the intelligent manufacturers very great care taken to provide with instruction the young men and young women who take part in manufactures. With respect to the boys who are destined to be engaged as farmers or agricultural laborers, there is another observation to make. Considering how great is the demand for their work, it is clear that if three days in the week were devoted to work as an apprenticeship to farming, and three days in the week to school, they would have time sufficient to learn to read, write, and cast accounts, as well as time to labor in the open air at the usual farming occupations. With regard to girls, there should be large district schools or boarding in small families, according to the circumstances of the district in which education is to be given. In an agricultural country a large district school, superintended by a person carefully chosen, may fulfil the expectations which Mr. Tufnell, a man of ability and public spirit, is sanguine enough to entertain. In the neighborhood of the metropolis or of a great town, the course which Mr. Senior recommends ought to be followed, and the home affections might be cultivated, together with attention to industry and household duties. On the general question, Lord Kussell asserts his opinion that the State ought to take care of every one of its children till at' least fourteen years oE age. Till that age, the education of the children of the poor should be gratuitous. There ought to be such facilities for education that some shame would attach to a man of twenty-one who had never heard of the name of Wellington, or to a woman of twenty who cannot sew and knit as well as read the literature of her own country. Seeing what an inquiring age we live in, and the attention which is devoted as well to history and geography as to physical science and the phenomena of light and heat, I watch with increasing interest the development of the mind and capacities of the nation. Although by my age I properly belong to the times gone by, I cannot but look forward to the times which are to come, not only with my old Whig aspiration for the cause of political and religious freedom all over the world, but with the hope that the Christian religion may obtain a wider reception, and Christian morality be developed in a purer light and with a more general observance. It seems to me that the greatest care ought to be taken by the President of the Council and the Noble Lord to whom the direction of the Committee on National Education is intrusted, to provide an interest in books by which the temptation to read may be not only inspired but fostered and encouraged. The boys who were taught to read under the direction of the former Committee of Council on Education were informed that if they learnt to read they might make themselves masters of Blackstone's Commentaries and Arnott's Physics. But, with great submission, I venture to doubt whether boys and girls of ten years old will easily comprehend and gain a solid knowleege of the doctrines of law expounded by Sir William Blackstone. At all events, lam inclined to think that, after reading "Little Bed Biding Hood" and " Jack the Giant Killer," the advance to "Robinson Crusoe," and other similar works, would be far more easy and attractive than the study of Blackstone's Commentaries and Arnott's Physics. Coming to the question of providing for the cost of a complete national system of education, Lord Russell ventures to say that if persons liable to property and income tax from £IOO and upwards, in the three kingdoms, were made subject, to the extent of sixpence in the pound, to a tax upon their property and income, the poor widows who have to bring up their six children upon four shillings allowance from the poor-rate might be relieved, and men of £40,000 or £50,000 a year would not suffer any great grievance if, on the payment of this subtraction from their income, the poor obtained the gratuitous schooling of their children. If to this tax on property and income were added an addition to the excise upon brandy, drunkenness might be diminished. In this manner a large sum might be added to our permanent reserve in time of peace. It is calculated that for every penny of the income and propertytax an addition to the revenue of nearly one million is obtained. So that for sixpence of income tax nearly six millions would be added to the revenue of the State. Surely it is better to provide for public services in this manner than to vex poor widows with heavy rates, and to force Baptists and Independents to contribute to the services of a church from which they conscientiously dissent. This matter should be well considered. I renounce my opinion that an ineome tax should onlybe imposed when the nation is at war. I believe an income and property tax is the fairest, the most just, and the most productive of all the taxes which the State can impose.