The Southland Times. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1873.

Southland Times, Issue 1696, 31 January 1873, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1873.

Tub <ju6Btiuu of notional education has of late engaged the attention of most of the Australasian legislatures. Our own Government, pledged in response to previous importunities, found themselves under the necessity, at the commence- " ment of last session of Assembly, of explaining that they would not undertake the introduction of an Education Bill, as the Bysteuas now working under the control of the various Provincial Governments doing very well. The real reason, as everybody knew, was that the then Ministry, were at that time so completely occupied in attending to what has been called the first law of nature, that is to say, the duty of self-preserva-tion, that they had no time for anything else. So the matter stands for the present, and it is extremely unlikely that we ■hall hear anything of an Education Bill in the Governor's speech at the opening of the next Assembly. But if the Government find it convenient to postpone the question, the people have not lost their interest in it, and sooner or later it will hare to be met with something like a practical solution. The sooner the better, all will admit, so that the soluticn be a good one ; and as we cannot arrive at it at once, it may be profitable in the meantime to acquaint ourselves with what has been done elsewhere. The Government of Victoria, not being provided with scapegoats in the shape of nine subsidiary Governments, on whose heads their sins might be laid, lately found themselves face to face with this important problem ; and it cannot be denied that they made a determined attempt to grapple with it when it was fairly placed before them. The result, after a fierce struggle, was a measure embodying the three leading principles that education should bo free, compulsory, and secular. The last word, secular, has an ugly sound in many ears, but it cannot too soon be understood that in our present stage of religious and social progress, it is the necessary complement of the other two, and means nothing more than that religious teaching will not be undertaken by the State. These principles will be recognised at once as considerably more advanced than those that have yet been advocated by any influential party in New Zealand. Much might no doubt be urged in their favor on merely abstract grounds. Such arguments would however be subject to the double disadvantage that, no matter how good they might be, no one would be likely to pay much attention to them ; and that, if any one did, it would be easy to find him an equal number of arguments on abstract grounds on the other side. With feelings of relicf — shared no doubt by our readers — we accordingly decline to discuss the abstract question whether a system o^ education free to all, compulsory, and secular, or one paid for by each parent, optional, and denominational, ia the beet for the State to adopt. "We turn with pleasure to facts, which have a logic of their own — not easily answered, and still less easily forgotten. It ia too soon yet to look for the results of the Victorian system, which was only brought into operation the other day, but we can already judge of the manner in which it has been received by the people. We quote the opening and closing sentences of an article in the Melbourne Daily Telegraph of 16th January:— "At the start off the success of the Education Act has been something surprising. The remarkable enthusiasm we chronicle today as exhibited on behalf of the measure must astonish even ita promoters, and is by far the most striking demonstration of public feeling Victorian legislation has yet evoked." "If the ball keeps rolling as it has commenced, . . . we shall really have established here a national system." The newspapers are filled with accounts from all parts of the Colony of the working of the new Act, and from the information thus furnished it is easy to see that the worda above quoted are free from the slightest exaggeration. The average attendance of children in many places had increased by about fifty per cent. Nearly all the schools in the country had come under the new measure, the unequivocal preference shown by the parents for the free education compelling the change even where the hostility of the denominational leaders for a time resisted it. For instance, a Presbyterian school in Sandhurst, the committee of which resolved to continue their old system, closed with 500 scholars, and opened as a private school with only 63, "a condition of things which speedily changed the viewp of the committee." The largest common school in the colony, a Presbyterian school in Emerald Hill, with about 1000 scholars, came under the Act it once, the proposal to turn it nso a private school being vetoed by the Barents. It is clear enough that the reference for the new system is by no Deans confined to the classes who might <

be supposed least able to pay school fees, but is practically" universal. A feature in the Victorian measure which deserves notice ia that the control of the whole system is in the hands of the Government ! under the charge of a Minister of Education. From the regulations just issued ! we extract the following, relating to the ! course of free instruction, which is divided into six classes. The subjects for the first, or elementary class, are : — Reading and Spelling : Tablets ; First Reading Book Irish National Board, or its equivalent. Writing : Capital and small letters on slate, from copies on black board, and from dictation. Arithmetic : Notation, learning to read and write numbers up to 20 ; oral addition and eubtnae'tion of numbers, each less than 11. Rhymes : To learn them daily. Needlework : those who are able to learn to commence. Disciplinary exercises." For the sixth or closing class of the free course, the subjects are as follows : — " Reading and Explanation : Any book or newspaper. "Writing : Mercantile writing. Arithmetic: Vulgar and decimal fractions. Grammar: Syntax, and prefixes and affixes, and analysis from Morell. Geography : Generally, of the world. Needlework: Put work together, cut out, and all plain needlework." It is evident that children who have been fairly carried through auch a course of instruction, will, at. the end of the free fcourse, have received a far better education than the majority of the children of New Zealand settlers receive under outpresent arrangements. That the subjects prescribed shall be actual*/ taught is of course the essential point ; and to secure this a system of payments by results has been devised. Of the working of this plan, and of the compulsory clauses, which have not yet been put in operation, it is too soon to judge. The Bame aaay indeed be said of the whole measure. But the success with which it appears to have been attended bo far, as well as the very definite and novel character of the measure itself, are sufficient to make its future progress a matter of the highest interest to us in New Zealand, who have our work in this department yet to commence.