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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4600, 17 December 1875, Page 2

These maniacal vaporings can do no good. “We ” can keep charging the New Zealand Times with all sorts of heinous things, until “ we,” as the vulgar saying has it, are black in the face, but no one will mind. “We ” have got so much into the habit of this style, that people do not mind “us,” and when “we” have a good cause, “we ” lose it by our own vituperative rhodomontade. The New Zealand Times, of course, is a blot on civilisation, but, somehow or another, it manages to be in the right. The New Zealand Times said of Mr. Travers’ candidature that it was identical with that of Mr. Gisborne, and that Mr. Travers did not advocate secular education. We founded the latter statement on Mr. Travers’ own words. That gentleman, lawyerlike, after professing a terrific advocacy for secularism, added a saving clause, in which he said that he would not oppose the Bible being read in schools, explanatory instruction being given relative to its history, geography, and grammar. That is just the point. Mr. Travers would, perhaps, endeavour to get returned as a secularist, and at the same time leave himself a loophole out of which he could subsequently creep to please his Ultramontanist sponsors. We reverence the Bible aa much as, or perhaps more than those who are so loud in their lip loyalty to its text; but we assert that it must not of itself be made, even as history or geography, a part of State school education, else denominationalism will creep in. That is the state of the case; and all the spluttering denunciations in literary Christendom will not prevent our stating it. It would be better if those who are nothing if not violent would quietly recognise this, and then they would not have to contradict to-day what they said, as it were, yesterday. Thus, on December the 9th, we were assured of Mr. Hutchison that “when he goes to the poll here we have little doubt that his matchless presumption will receive a summary and well-merited rebuke at the hands of the ratepayers of Wellington City.” Then only yesterday we were told “ That the recent contest for the Mayoralty of the city has resulted in the election of Mr. Hutchison need not cause surprise.” This is just of a piece with those outrageous splashings in which “we” challenge, and “we” dare, and “we” convict, and “we” do a great deal besides, that people of cool common sense only laugh at. If “we ” would only take Hamlet’s advice to the players, and in the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion, acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness, “ we” would get on much better.

We have been requested to call attention to an advertisement which appears in another column, convening a meeting of ratepayers and of parents of children attending the BuckleT street school, recently established by the Education Board. This is the first time within the city that an attempt has been made by the Board to vest the local management of any of their schools in a committee chosen by those immediately interested, more particularly the parents of the children receiving instruction in the various schools, and we trust that in this instance such a selection will be made as will give parents and others confidence that a watchful and careful supervision is being exercised over the internal management of the school, without undue interference with the teachers, and that the result will be such As vrill induce the Board to extend the same privilege to tho other schools under their sway, as we can imagine no better means of interesting parents and others. in, the well-being of these schools than giving them some say in their management. Now that the Board have revised and copied, their rules and regulations, including the duties of teachers, parents, children,! and local committees, code of salaries,;

classification of teachers, inspections, examinations, &c., and as copies of these in a pamphlet form can now be obtained we are informed, on application to the Education Office, there is no excuse for ignorance in any of the. above points, and it is to be hoped that the attendance on Monday evening at the Buckle-street school will show that the recent excitement in education matters, as evidenced by the voluminous newspaper correspondence, is not a mere political cry of the moment. The meeting is convened by the Hon. W. Gisborne, who will preside on the occasion. At a “ reunion of the army of Tennessee,” President Grant is reported to have said, after alluding to the late war : “If we have another contest in the near future, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s line, but one between patriotism and intelligence on one-side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other. The centennial year work of , strengthening the foundation of the structure commenced by our forefathers at Lexington should begin. Let us labor for security of free thought, free speech, free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and the equal rights and privileges of all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion ; encourage free schools ; resolve that not one dollar appropriated to them shall go to the support of any sectarian school; resolve that neither State nor nation shall support any institutions save those where every child may get common school education, unmixed with any atheistic, pagan, or sectarian teaching—leave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, and keep Church and State for ever separate. With those safeguards, I believe the battles which created the army of Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.”