Public school Education a Peril To Civilisation.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 63, 16 August 1884, Page 5

Public school Education a Peril To Civilisation.

. Hie .Boston " Jlcrald recently contained a communication entitled "A Word to W omen," in which the writer — herself : the mother Gf several children who were attending public schools in that city— sent forth a warning voice to every mother in the land concerning the dangers which beset their daughters, especially, in consequence of the vicious habits that prevail in these mixed schools. Here is the heart-felt cry of a faithful mother i who mourns over the fate o f her own neighbours' children : — "I want to appeal to the women whe care for the children, not only for our own, whom tho watchful motherly care cannoi always pave from the perils of the world, but especially for tho thousands who havi little help to make them good and strong, except the teachings and influences of the public &chools- Oh, sisters, the purity anc power for good of this institution is weak ning rapidly. The community, full o: necessary and unnecessary cares, seem! blind to it, or hopeless about it and moves not. Whereas once every teacher tool almost a parental' oversight and though' for every moral and physical interest o their charge, from the hour in which tin children came from their homes until the; re-entered them, and felt, as the noble heac of one of our normal schools expressed at j late convention, that ' responsibility i ' measured only by possible opportunity, now, with a few exceptions, enforcec obedience to school rules during school hour seems to be the sum of endeavour. "Charming lessons in some iavouriti science absorb the free hours of the week ; which are the teachers ' golden opportunit; i to impress never-to-be-forgotten principle • of morals, manners, and health upon thos young hearts and minds. For lack of these they are being turned out a peril to civil isation. Weakened, body and nerve, b , smoking, by beer, and by vile reading t they feel unfit for work, and ready only t , imitato the heroes of their literature i i gaining a living without labor. If girls, ther i are equally imminent dangers of simila • reading, of late hour, of walking the street in the evening, of accepting the apparentl 3 harmless 'soda water' from some ligh street acquaintance. This is no newspapc : bugbear. It is knowledge gained by yea) of voluntary work and observation amonj ' not only the people of the North End, bi > the better working classes of the West an ) South End. The children of those busy me i and women have not had the watch, cai j and oxhortation individually from mastei ) and honoured men of the School Boar ■ which the parents had even fifteen or tweni 3 years ago. And all the school conventioi , of the country are beginning to wonder wh I those upon whom so much money has bee i spent are not being turned out more fit f< I citizenship. What answer ? " i Every word written by this mother 3 true. Public school education is rapid] becoming what she truthfully calls " a poi to civilisation." Such children as a: , educated in public schools have no reveren< L' for parental authority; they treat the f parents as if they were inferior to their I they seem to enjoy nothing that is pure ar 3 innocent, but all their pastime must 1 3 flavoured with blasphemy and corroded t • vice. The books they read are rotten mi

mmorai unougnts ana uncnaste senwrneuwj , Drofanity and impurity are known to them before they are out of their pinafores ; and ye see the result of all such educational iraining in the hideous,hidden sins of society n every State in the Union. .' Civilisation, therefore, cannot progress mder such a system of education as_ that larriedonin public schools. Such institutions may turn out "smart" scholars, but .heir smartness will lead them eventually o develop into wicked men and wanton vomen, to whom the commands of God and he Christian virtues will become an abomilation. Our asylums, hospitals, insane isylums, and prisons are rapidly filling up vdth educated men and women, whose very ntelligence make them all the more langerous to society. And it is in this ightthat we recognise the truth of the >ssertion that for want of religious and Qoral teaching the youth educated in public chools will become a "peril to civilisation." -"San Francisco Monitor."