THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5102, 31 July 1877, Page 3

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ON EDUCATION.

The following remarks by the Primate of England may be commended to the attention of the Rev. Mr. Coffey. They were delivered on the occasion of the Archbishop presiding at the annual meeting of the Church Building and Endowment Society connected with the diocese, on Wednesday, 23rd May:— The Archbishop said the first subject he had to introduce to them was the operation of the Education Act of 1876. Perhaps he ought to say that there was a good deal of difficulty in understanding that Act, and a good deal of difficulty in arranging the mode in which it was to operate, because a great deal was left in every neighborhood to the exertions of those who were interested in the welfare of the district. There were two points to which he thought it was his duty to draw attention in connection with it, without entering upon details. The first had reference to the question of compulsion as embodied in the Act. There was no doubt it was the intention of the Act that there should he gradually introduced, if not at once, if not direct yet indirect compulsion, which would make it impossible for any children within specified ages not to be sent to one or other of the sort of schools which were pointed out in ■ the Act. A great deal as to the working of the Act must depend upon those who had personal influence over the agricultural population, and of course to no one more than to the clergy might they naturally look for working this matter more smoothly. As he ventured to say on the occasion of the passing of the Act, compulsion in the matter of education was after all but a rough mode of preparing a better state of general feeling. Those countries in which education had been most happily conducted were those in which such a general public feeling bad been called forth in favor of the education of all, that all had been ready to make whatever sacrifices had been necessary for the education of their children. The other point to which he wished to direct their attention bore specially on their particular duties as entrusted with the charge of their various parishes. No doubt a great responsibility rested on the clergy in the matter of maintaining for future generations a really efficient system of religious instruction. No doubt the Act which they were then discussing had certain advantages as compared with its predecessor for the discouragement of mere secular instruction. But it was possible that at the end of some 60 years it might be found that a general system of mere secular instruction had implanted itself in the country with all the advantages which the assistance of Government gave, and that that which was left to voluntary effort might be found to be lagging behind. But if that was to_ be the case it would, of course, be greatly their fault. It might be true, and it was true, that they had to carry on their efforts under very considerable disadvantages. They had only to appeal to the clergy in the various parishes to redouble their efforts to maintain the wholesome and sound system of religious instruction for the poor committed to their care, and that appeal would be answered, so that by God's blessing this great country would not run any danger of having its education secular dissociated from its education religious. The result of their deliberations would produce distinct practical fruit, for he had always been anxious that such meetings as that should bear as far as possible a practical character. They heard a good deal in the present day of the living voice of the Church and of the necessity of the Church of England having the right and the power of making its voice heard. He quite granted there were important matters of detail as to its organisation on which it was perfectly right that, according to the Constitution of the country, the Church should have the opportunity of allowing its voice to be heard ; and though it might be difficult for that voice to be beard in the matter to which he had alluded, yet still there were constitu-

tional ways in which it might be heard, and he had no doubt that when it was heard it would always be attended to. The difficulty was this, which many persona ■ did not exactly apprehend—that on the subject of doctrine and any change in the formularies of the Church, most people were contented with the doctrines which they had received from their fathers, and did not wish to change them, and they believed that the example of a great foreign Church, which had lately endeavored to make its living voice heard in the promulgation of new doctrines, was not encouraging to those who were anxious that the Church should speak in its corporate capacity as to doctrine. As to other matters, let them remember that moat people were contented to acquiesce in the great settlement by which the constitution of the Church was arranged at the Reformation, and therefore no one, as far as knew, wished that the Church of England, even in matters of discipline, should be continually speaking, because it had spoken once for all, and their business was to give effect to the voice it had uttered ; but at. the same time some questions might arise as to things of that kind. But what he wished to impress upon that assembly was that in its highest sense the Church of Christ and the Church of England were never silent, as shown by tlm improvement which had occurred in public opinion concerning the question of duelling, the gradual improvement in the religious tone of the whole community, and in the relations between the rich and the poor. It was that living voice of the Church which secured to it the respect of the whole Christian community; it was that which enabled it to perform the task committed to it by its great Heavenly Master. The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury had never been so well employed in giving expression to the living voice of the Church, as during those long deliberations which it held on the question of intemperance, that curse which was sapping away the life of the nation.