COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

Southland Times, Issue 860, 6 December 1867, Page 3

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

The Nation advocates our adoption of a compulsory system of education, and endeavors in a very plausible manner to i Bhow that such compulsion is not a violation of individual liberty. It admits that at present faith in the efficacy of such a step is not sufficiently general to secure the enforcement of laws necessary to carry out the system, and gives this as one of the probable reasons why the Committee on Education of the Constitutional Convention have not recommended that education be made compulsory. It is true that there is an apparent violation of indivuidual liberty in the com. pulsory system. But if it can be made clear that the result is permanently and generally beneficial, it is difficult to see why restrictions on individual liberty are not as legitimate when employed in the prevention as they are in the punishment of crime. The government that has a right to consign Paddy Whack to the Penitentiary for a term of years for an infringement of law has alike right, based on the protection it owes to society, to compel Paddy "Whack, Jr., to go through that training which shall make him a good and law-abiding citizen. The practical working of the compulsory system in Europe furnishes strong arguments in its behalf. In Switzerland " a reformed system of education has almost emptied the jails." In the Grand Duchy of Baden a like state of affairs followed the adoption of the plan. In Prussia, compulsory school attendance dates from the earliest period of the reformation, and was a recognised religious duty long before it became a law of the State. The schooling is compulsory only in name ; the school has taken so deep a root in the social habit of the German people that, were the law repealed to-morrow, no one doubts that the schools would continue as full as they now are. The temporary evil which seems to flow from too suddenly and widely extended electoral privileges will be removed by the intellectual and moral improvement which will follow compulsory education. It will be well if its adoption be not prevented by the opposition of the class whose permanent influence it is designed to neutralise. — Nevr York paper.