The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1882.

Temuka Leader, Issue 920, 21 February 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1882.

The question of Education is one to which a great deal of attention has been paid and yet, from our point of view, we think that it has been but very indifferently understood. The main objects of schools under the present system seems to us to be to cram, the youthful mind with a knowledge of living and dead languages, and of grammar, arithmetic, geography, and the numerous oiher. sciences which they teach. A youth possessing a knowledge of these tilings is considered educated, fit in fact to go outinto,the world to fight the battle of life. He needs, no more, he is.a scholar, and that is enough. To educate their children seems to be the ruling passion of the parents of the present age, and we must admit that it. is a very laudable ambition if ihey would onl\ take the proper course to do so, but in our opinion very few. do or even understand how. The,gieat mistake that is madg.is to think that book learning is.sufficient to fit a, man for fighting his way successfully through life's rough and rugged pathway. Anyone who has any knowledge of the world will agree with us that that is altogether a mistaken notion. Book-learning, without any more knowledge of the world, except that which it gives, is a very bad outfit for the journey through life unless its possessor is fortunate enough to fall into that groove of business for which lie is fitted by his education, and when everyone, b\' being educated as they are in this colony at present, is futedjfor these genteel occupaions it is impossible that a].! can s obtain them. Who has not seen sad examples, of this delusion of-education in everyday l'fe. Advertise for a clerk at 30s. week and you will be deluged with applications, but if you advertise for a. blacksmith or a carpenter., at £3 per week ten to one if you get the second applicant, and you may often have a d : fficulty in getting any at all. Now here are two men differently educate-d ; the clerk knows perhaps Latin, French and Greek, geometery, bookkeeping and ev.eryoh.ing learned, the capenter, or blacksmith, or shoemaker, or tinsmith, or whatever he may be knows his trade, and. the question arises which is the most useful knowledge f Which is it better to be a media, ic in fustian, independent cf any man, or a clerk in a seedy black coat shivering at every frown of his master for fear he would dismiss him. The mechanic is not afraid of any man because if he should get out of one job he knows that he can easily get another ; the clerk on the other hand knows if he should be dismissed there are hundreds ready to compete with him for any vacancy which might occur, One enjoys the " glorious privilege of being independent," the other is actually not much better'off than a slave, sometimes having to remaiD over his books in his warehouse until the small hours of the morning, .vithout a penny or even a word of thanks, for .the extra labpr which he does, while the mechanic can give up working at the stroke of five o'clock, or if he has to work longer he has to be paid for it at a higher rate of wages than he received during the previous part of the day. But the clerk who is fortunate ' enough to get employment is not the worse off.' He is as happy as a king com- ] pared with the poor, unfortunate who is ] educated but can find no means of making use of, it, and who, od account of that < education and his early training, is too , pround t© descend to physical labor. Of r all the unfortunate beluga on ourth, an

educated man out at the elbows, and without employment is the most unhappy, and though we have great contempt for him, because of his, unwillingness to earn an honest living by hard work, we cannot help sympathising with him, because it is not so muefrhis own fault as that of the training which he received in his youth. He has been taught to look down on honest lab">r, and to. covet genteel occupations, and now he finds to his cost what a terrible mistake his education has been. We might point out that his. ohisjs supplies a large number of the loafers, and formers, and other ciimiunlsthat prey upon society. We might draw harrowing pictures of the lives they lead, but our object is not to stir up the feelings of our readers but to lay before them what we think oujhtto bo the proper way of educating their children. In the first place parents leave too much to the schoolm and do very little in the way of bringing up their chil. dren themselves. In a conversation with • a young m,an a. short time ago, we heard him say : " I would not do such a thing ; if I did I would be. the first of the name to bring dishonor on it." Who could not but respect such noble sentiments as . tnese, and yet, they are sentiments which schoolmasters will not inculcate. They must be inculcated by the parents, and the earlier in life a child is taught to feel a pride in his name, and to preserve it from stain, the more likely the impression is to last. To be upright, honest, honorable, and straightforward in all their dealings ;■ to abhor every tiling underhand and base ; to be charitable, to feel for others' j woes, raid to respect true merit in what- , ever station of life it may be found, must be taught at home, for it can never be 1 learned at School, and the parents who neglect ihis branch of their children's » education, and pay for cramming Latin " and G.ieek into their heads, do not do their duty. Children should also receive a good, English education, Lut if they are . not iuteuded for any of the learned professions it is folly to go beyond it. It would be far,.better, to, teach them some trade, and to be useful members of socie'y. High-class education is well enough for those who can afford it, but it is.-becoming . a mania now-a-days in the colony, and the result will be to, the.rising generation unless they are taught something more substantial. We shall have no one to follow the plough, to handle the pick and shovel or do any such hard labor, but we will have hundreds of them jostling each other for every miserable i clerkship which, may become vacant, and . when they fail to obtain such employment committing forgeries and filling our gaols witfi criminals. W e warn our readers against this, and remind them that, the best education they can give their children is to teach them a meaus of earning an honest living A; man, who, has a trade, and is educated, can at any time become a clerk, if by doing so he finds it will improve his position,, but he. cannot become, a 4 tradesman, if he has not Imd early framing, and has spent the time it which ho might have learned a trade iu acquiring a knowledge of. Latin and Greek.