The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1920. EDUCATION AND CRIME.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3499, 29 May 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1920. EDUCATION AND CRIME.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News."

Public newspapers .almost daily invite readers to interestedly study the relationship between education and j crime, to introspcctively examine and (determine whether education is that deterrent of crime that its advocates, from the earliest days of free education campaigns, have claimed for it. Only a casual analysis of law court reports will convince the enquirer that the worst cases occupying Supreme and Magistrate’s Courts are those in which men with some degree of education occupy the offender’s dock, it can no longer be denied that education plus criminal instinct is the curse of unprecedented magnitude with which any society in any time has been afflicted, and it now seems to have well overshadowed the dark curs% of ignorance that pervaded all grades of society in ail countries a century or two ago. In earlier times ignorance made\ slaves of men, to-day education is turning men into vampires. The most .amazing crimes of the present are those committed by highly educated, accomplished men of genius. In the very deepest pits of social infamy is found an overwhelming preponderance of educated men and women, and sociologists are expressing alarm that social, moral and criminal laws are such that the drift to moral degradation is still on the dangerous downward trend. Only yesterday the Chief Justice of this Dominion stated in the Supreme Court at Wanganui that "the ideal of justice was that human life ,must be kept sacred; if in any community this ideal was slackened the community would soon become non-existent.” Is it not time that society took stock of its moralising and demoralising influences, teachings and practices? For the ideal of justice should be, and is, no less applicable in all other branches of crime and immorality than it is in the deliberate djcsfrueifion oPhuman life, but so busy is mankind in getting an unfair share of the means whereby fhej can gratify depraved appetites

that they have no time to considcl'_. or even scan the ledger balance between education and crime. We would ask the Chief Justice -of this truly beautiful country whetherlie is not of the opinion that society is speeding‘, upon the back of a tangible “Greryon,” through “Maleboge,” the everlasting sepulehre and abode of fraud, to the very brink of the lowest social hell, where,’ in its greatest and foullest depths, are gathered those who were best fortified by education, position and influence to withstand the temptations that uneducated, uncultured minds readily fall victims ‘€o9 FYOIII fraud ‘is traced almost’ -all other crimes, even that of foul and deliberate murder being no exception. Then, it is against fraud in all its hateful phases that enemies to crime and firiends to «a higher standard of morality alike must unite their eiforts in redeeming society and saving it from the destruction that fraud is fast eneompassing it with. Almost at our doors the depths of crime have been bottomed by a man of high attainments, {L man who could, and did, command the respect of’ the society in which he moved, being placed in the highest seat of honour that was at theirdisposal. But» let '-‘no ‘man be too harsh in his judgment, for his crimes were only rendered possible by the social decay to which the worm and canker of fraud has brought it. Civilised countries are exhibiting shame at the waves of crime that are

{passing over them. and communities are excusing this widespread crime, claiming it to be an aftermath of war] Unthinking people are easily -gfilled with such excuses, and partisans -of fraud are thereby hardened in their destructive ways, but there is a vast section of ‘mankind perturbed, amazed, and appalled at that. wave of crime, «which responsible governments are making no efiorts to stem other than those exerted by an ordinary police force. Old systems of moral training have been scrapped by the disciples of fraud and by those to whom moral ‘irestraint; is repugnant; and harassing, ‘N and the morally uncultivated fields of ;hum:lnity are becoming choked with moral. weeds and garbage. “The ideal of justice is that human life must be kept. sacred; if in any community this ideal is ‘slaekened the community will soon become “nonexistent.” ‘This undeniable logic ut-teredby the Chief Justice is only applied "by him to murder, but is it not equally applicable to fraud and all other ‘forms of it morality Is the only deterrent to crime and immorality to be the punishment that can only be administered to that crime, to that murder and that fraud of whichthe committor is proved to be guilty by eviffence in a law court‘? If so, how can the ideal of justice ever come within human view? It is roughly estimated‘ that for every crime punished thousands go unpunished, and is it. not .a fact that -the awful Wang-anui crime was committed in the hope and belief that its just punishment would be averted by the committal of a series of no less hideous crimes? Surely it will not be denied that the time for a moral stock-taking is long overdue, a stocktaking that should include an exhaustiveureport upon what efl‘ect upon civilisation a compulsory education shorn of moral iniinlcation is having. The earliest advocates of free educa-A tion never contemplated ‘a system that ‘ would :IlL'o\v the -moral faculties in? mankind to run to seed unheedctl, pl'l)- ‘I ducing :1 crop of immorality of which ‘ much debased communities are asham-I ed. Those venerated advocates of free education of earlier times neverl conternplated a system which did notll hold fmud, murder and other crime-si

! up to horror and exocration, to an unllimifed, indescribable (letestntion, us being inimicul to the existence of the comniunity. After some exjieriellce of wirlespreucl education under State regulation Horace Mann stated in one ‘of’ his I'e]iol'fs to the fxll’Cllol‘i’flt‘St “’l‘e:u:hers a(ldl'e.<s themselves to ‘rho ,ic-nltnrc of the in-lelle«,v.t mainly. The i.l":lc.t. that children have moral nlll'nl'('.~‘. ‘and social ufiieetions then in the inoslz rapid state of de.velol_mlellt is scarcely recognised. Such elevation of the suboz*:lirlatt=——sllch cuastiiig down of -the suprome—is incolnpat:ible with all that is wortliy to be called the prosperity of tlleir manhood. In such early lmbits there is {L gratification and proclivity to ultimate downfall and ruin. Tl’ pcl‘:~'iStC<l in. the (t.onsumm:ll'ion of :1. people’._< <lesti.ny may still be :1 question of time but if c(=nse.~,= to he one of r-m-minty.” We have quoted Horace Mann l)ee:iuse he expressed, gelling on for :1 eenl'.nl'y :Igo,‘wll:;tf fhei Chief Jllsliee of New Zenlznul .~‘ai<li yesterday in the proseeutiflxl of his} most. solemn duty“ To whatever conn-J try one looks there loom the erimesi of a one-sided education. Apart from‘ an intellect training of the young mlueaution has failed to impart that’ qualify of knowledge which enlarges; 13110 soul, gives to the mind more cor-I 1-eat apprehensions, and more noble} dispositions. —.and let us say with writer of’ three-quarters of a century! ago, “t’"haf., on the Whole, it is iim-i possible for a man to obtain’ even the ' first rays of true instruction‘ without] also enlarging the boundaries of his moral being‘ for power and goodness.

It is difficult in face of the appalling increase of crime and multiplication of crime waves to understand how the Chief Justice, or -anyoneelse, can go on hoping to lessen crime, or stem crime waves by solely punitory means. It is when men are startled, brought to a sense of understanding all(l\responsibility by such a terrible reminder -as that which came from Wanganui yesterday, -that they are brought face to face with an appalling drift towards that stage of crime when .3 people's destiny ceases to be one of certainty. An unfortunate that should have been a brilliant: ornament to his country has been doomed to spend no inconsiderable part of his unspent life in 9. conviet’s cell. Is not a one-eared education more to blame than the individual? '