THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Southland Times, Issue 1587, 4 June 1872, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

(Southland Times, May 21.) The Education debate in the Provincial Council has clearly been the great effort of tha session. For three days and nights the question was discussed from every conceivable point of view, and with very varied ability. Amendment 'succeeded amendment, until, as Mr Tolmte I said, in moving the adjournment of the 1 debate on the second evening, " honorable i members had got into a considerable fog with regard to the question." reporters seem to have been equally bewildered, the Ota»o 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 the debate. On Tuesday, before the education question proper was entered upon, the Council insisted on reserving half a million of acres of Crown Land for the endowment of common schools throughout the Province. Mr Keib's remonstrances were of no avail, nor his statement that the country was rapidly becoming covered with reserves, and that the reserves for this very purpose were already very large, and produced more than £7000 a year at the present time, when their value was not a tithe of 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 ifrom 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 po 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 ibr the' distribution of a fair proportion of the grant among the Eoman Catholic schoola. Mr Macassey's speech in support of J his resolutions was, as might be expected, an able one, and, to judge from thp t frequent expressions' of' applause with which it was' received, it-must have bee£ 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 MrDoirALD Eeib, when he said that the logical deduction 1 from Mr Macasset's argument was, that all state education should be secular.

The Eoman Catholics in the .Province number about one-tenth of the population,.and they alone, >f air the denpminatio.ns composing ","\ the . remaining. ninW ( tenths,, have openly demanded tMat a. portion of the public money shbuld^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. Now the teaching of dogmatic' theology is by no means the end con-' templated 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- fV to discharge the duties which they oyre i to the community. To accomplish this, ifc is necessary that an efficient national system of education be established, and supported by the common purse. Private eflorts will not meet the necessity, and it is clear that if the duty has to be "undertaken by the State; no 7 preference should be j shown to one 'sect over another. All should) share alike. There are, besides the Roman 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 denominations 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 arrange men ts,^even though it be demanded in^ the name of justice, is really toopeathe 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 This is really the problem, to be solved. So long as any are left without the means of obtaining a good education, the r wqjrk 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. llt does seem strange, and it -is not '■creditable, that.in a professedly Christian I country, the Bible cannot be read in the • public schools. It has not been found i impossible in America, and we are not 'sure that it will be found impossible in ; New Zealand. : But if it. should prove j that the jealousy of conflicting sects goes even so far as this, we have no hesitation fin declaring our conviction that 'a national system of education in elementary subjects, of a purely secular kind, will be infinitely preferable to any plan by which the public funds are distributed to -the i virious religious bodies/ in aid of 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 the effect that the national. ;platt of education must be unsectarian. This is satisfactory so far as it goes, but.uthe . great detect ;of > the discussions.jin-the I Provincial Council is their, want of reality. ! Every one knows that .the questions will I ultimately be decided in the Assembly. I The- General Government have already ' circulated copies, of an Education Bill, which they propose to introduce next session. In this measure, amidst much that is, useful, we find the denominational principle admitted^ in the apparently harmless guise of the, aided school clauses. The opinion of prominent members on both- sides of the House is knoyvn to be in. favor of the denominational system. As it is in the Assembly that the real b'att'e must be fought, it is to be hoped that the matter will ■ not be lost J sight of by those interested in 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.