The Southland Times. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1872.

Southland Times, Issue 1581, 21 May 1872, Page 2

The Southland Times. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1872.

I [ . The Education debute in the Provincial Council has clearly been the great effort j of the session. For three days and j - nights the question was discussed from every conceivable point of view, and with very varied ability. Amendment succeeded amendment, until, as Mr Tolhie j said, in moving the adjournment of the debate on the second evening, " honorable members had <;ofc into a considerable fog with regard to the question." The reporters seem to have been equally bewildered, the Otago Daily Times devoting a considerable portion of a column to the correction of errors in their account of the amendments and ! counter-amendments which characterized I the debate. On Tuesday, before the education question proper was entered I upon, the Council insisted on reserving half a million of acres of Crown Land for the endowment of common schools throughout the Province. Mr Keid's remonstrances were of no avail, nor^his statement that the country was rapidly becoming covered wifch reserves, and that the reserves for this very purpose were already very large, and produced more than f-Woo « y<«» «* *u<> p~»«»«* * J ~°> when their value was not a tithe or what it might be expected to become as the population increased, and schools were more needed. Argument was useless ; the Council had agreed to endow the University with another 100,000 acres the day before, and a certain class of members who did not see any great need for this liberality, or perhaps for a University at all, immediately announced that if this vote was passed, they would insist on five times as much being set apart for the common schools. Their success provoked the sarcastic remark from Mr Bell, that he thought the Council was desirous to get rid of the responsibility of administering the land as speedily as possible. Mr Macasset then proceeded to discharge the debt of gratitude he owes to the party which returned him, by moving two resolutions, to the effect that the Roman Catholic body was entitled to share in the annual grant for education, and that the Ordinance be amended to provide for the distribution of a fair proportion of the grant among the Eoman Catholic schools. Mr Macassey's speech in support of his resolutions was, as might be expected, an able one, and, to judge from the frequent expressions of applause with which it was received, it must have been an oratorical success. We think however that he completely failed to make out a case for his clients, and we are inclined to agree for once with Mr Donald Eeib, when he said that the logical deduction from Mr Macasset's argument was, that all state education should be secular. The Roman Catholics in ttie rrovtnce number about one-tenth of the population, and they alone, of all the denominations composing the remaining ninetenths, have openly demanded that a \ portion of the public money should be set apart, not for the purpose of securing for their children a good elementary education in secular subjects, but for the purpose of teaching their own peculiar dogmas. JSTow the teaching of dogmatic theology is by no means the end contemplated in making State provision for the education of children. The object sought to be attained is that the children shall grow up good citizens, able to discharge the duties which they owe to the community. To accomplish this, it is necessary that an efficient national system of education be established, and supported by the common purse. Private efforts will not meet the necessity, and it is clear that if the duty has to be undertaken by the State, no preference should be shown to one sect over another. All should share alike. There are, besides the Eoman Catholics, 98 other denominations of Christians in the Province. Should these, or any considerable number of them, also insist on special educational grants for their own use, a large part of the sum raised for education would be spent in a way which all will admit would be at once ruinously wasteful, and by no means calculated to effect the object in view. The balance available for State schools would be inadequate to maintain them in a state of efficiency. A grievous injustice would thus be done both to those who might be willing to use the State schools, and to those denorniEations who might not be numerous enough to procure aided schools for themselves in more than one or two places in the Province. To admit the denominational principle at all in our educational arrangements, even though it be demanded in the name of justice, is really to open the door to injustice of the most glaring kind, and at the same time to impair most seriously the efficiency of the public machinery for providing a good education for all. This is really the problem to be solved. So long as any are left without the means of obtaining a good education, the work of the State is so far incomplete. The presence of even a small number of uneducated citizens in a community is an evil from which the whole is sure to suffer, and it will require all the advantages of a thoroughly organised system of State education, free from the claims of conflicting or rival denominations for assistance, to cope with this danger in a thinly peopled country. It does seem strange, and it is not creditable, that in a professedly Christian country, the Bible cannot be read in the public schools. It has not been found impossible in America, and we are not sure that it will be found impossible in New Zealand. But if it should prove that the jealousy of conflicting sects goes even so far as this, we have do hesitation in declaring our conviction that a national system of education in elementary subjects, of a purely secular hind, will be infinitely preferable to any plan by which the public lends are distributed to the Yarious religious bodies, in aid oi their

separate systems of educational machinery. To this conclusion, after much debate, the Council came at last ; affirming an amendment proposed by Mr Cutten, to j the effect that the national plan of education inuaC be imsectarian. Thia ia satisfactory so far- as it goes, but tho | izrcat defect of rhe discussions in tho ! Provincial Council Is their want of reality. Every one know* t'n:\t the questions will [ ultimately be decided in the Assembly, j Tha Genera! Government have already circulated copies of an rYim\itio:i Bill, which they pr-ipo^e to iulrodu.ee nest session. In ibid measure, ariidsfc much that is useful, v.'e find the denominational I principle admitted in tho apparently harmless guise of the aided school clauses. ) I The opinion of prominent members on | both sides of the Uouso is known to be in favor of the denoiniuational system. As it is in the Assembly that the real ! batt'e must be fought, it is to be hoped that the matter will not be lost sight of by those interested iu the question, and > who is not ? It is highly desirable that before the Assembly meets, public opinion should be formed on the subject, and such expression given to it as will secure the adoption of a thoroughly national and comprehensive scheme.