REV.J. WATERS ON EDUCATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 255, 13 April 1880, Page 2

REV.J. WATERS ON EDUCATION.

The t ’lutjifi Lender says —At our request Mr Adaevs lias kin Hy amp!ill cl roiu of the. ivmni-k-; mads by him at the Kaihikii Soiree on P’ri lay evening truth nit., and has handed us Urn sanm lur uubiicat ion.

After suin' 1 | we! iml nary sentences. Mr Waters said : —‘‘ Indication has p-r----luips -it this day a higher place in public thought than ever it has had in lime past. /s.vs'f, pei haps, so much as now. ha* it la en nalised r,hat it is. and must he, one of the main means of human perfection end progress. This must bo the case with man because he is rational. The mere animal with instinct-for his law, is bom with his clothing’on or safely soon o grow spontaneously out of his skin. Nature produces also his food readily cooked fos him, and bus endowed him with instincts which speedily unfold in him the proper 1 Whits to guide him surely to slum what should shun, am! pursue what he should pursue. While man is very different, he is. and ever lias been, hern naked, and nature produces inliuateiy I‘t.tlo suitably ready to he his food—only in very earliest infancy can naiuro diet the child man. Nor is he endowed with instincts

suilici'-nl to u a ibid in him a proper character. It; is ev id nit. therefore, that !u> mast ho formally ami persever!llv,iv educated. Ho needs ski!!, that <.ml or the raw mar rials nature \! i I:. In* may cover hhnsoli with suitable ch>thiug, and prepare. for himself smhaoh food, and siciU also to have developed in h:rnself a character suitable to his capacities, raid to be the condition and guarantee of his perfect and permanent wool. .For one main thing edncatibn is meant to fit th individual to exe- rciso ids or her own priv.ti;: judgement whereover human interests may turn up, .-r in whatever line mans rosponsibiJi-ies may iu>. This rigid; of inuividual-opin on is man’s groat prerogative, reason and not ins tine I is within himself, Ids main guidance, and that whether the micros'-;> ho civil or be sacred . His knowledge must b<> intelligent knowkv.lge, urn! It is f.iith intelligent faith. Without this (here can lie really neither commendable citizenship nor reward-able religion. This ability to excoreise private judgement, or from one’s own opinion is man’s main prmmga live and his great ost responsibility Citizenship for this world, and religion j for the next arc made alike dependent | on it. Wu enlightened education i-'not I one that merely trims the human bang j be little else than an industrial, com-

morcial <T Military expert, A nation of such experts might soon Ivoomi’ a mas.-» of wreck on the fie;' of nature. Greece am! Rome of <>M arc Instances. Education must do much more than develop merely .snob exp rtness, it must aim at inculcating the right of private Judgment am! at pming the mind in possession of the info, maturn needed lor the exercise of i.ncli prorog • tiv ■. Then only is tlie Gitv or

IS late strong, and then only can its propress be steady and unlimited. Every non-Protestant and heathen nation on the face of this earth have erred b to. They have violated the groat preroga!ive that every man lias a right to form mid express bis own opinion regarding his own weal an I tiiat of the civil or sacred community, to which he belongs. Hea-

then and non-Prot stan; teachers and rulers have obstinately denied this _ prerogative, and pe; siston'ly taught the, : opposite, therefore are those natioir * internally so unsafe, and externally SO weak. An education that shall fir. man for his funeti ms must aim at f: ach ngß him to h > f ee. It must him that tin- right of private judgment is a main pillar of the State and of the Church alike. This is true conservatism/ And wi- bin Christendom there is the great scheme of Poper/, which is a system ot bondage "built as on one ; illar, upon the deir'al of the private judgment. And it seems however expert men may be in to (OinmiTcc and war, her with its fatal denial of tiro right of the 1 individual reason, will still hoi 1 them I in bondage. 'Taking man’s moral I nature to he what it is, and taking the 1 determined persistence ot the Romish ' Religious d igma to he what it is, and taking secular education with its shortcomings to he what is, there arc overwhelmin', probabilities that she ryill be able to bring an increasing proportion of the community under her influence, and ultimately under her bondage, anjjl that in matters civil as well as in matters sacred. The Pap'.y conquers by - education, and she can he defeated only, by an education that will insist on the, right of the individual to orm and ex-', press his or her private opini m in the face of her de erminod and elobrate ih-nid of the same. Even Fr*e America is beginning to fell slight symptoms of tire great auM-protestant negation She has prohjihiy ten millions already in bondage to Rome, and there are nations of Europe whose present and past condition is proof positive that the ... bondaged faith and hondaged intellect- ■ V is ni’-ant to control the State as well as tie*. Church, to dogmatise over the man as a citiz-m as w-dl as ov< r him as a isi ■ i>i!•. ror a .Church, Tim r?a! post . to l"“ contend?:! for : s “ The right of private o'u-lgmehi./’ and whoever will . look fti iv into tin' wliole case will set that Protestant faith is, as against Rome, Ci-n-vrv.ihle -uly by putting the citizen and t ••• ■ church member alike possession of Bible knowledge. r0..t10--s vapours of the so-called ■" Free Though) ” few are as li hd, as straws before the Homan dogma. They are utterly haekboneloss he tore the compact logic of Rome, for which she finds an admirable . fulcnlm in the uneducated rsiigious instinct of the iruman soulTim Bible is the one weapon with which the Papacy’s pi ogress can he effectively checked.