EDUCATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1561, 5 March 1887, Page 3

EDUCATION.

TO THB BEITOK. Sir, —I daresay you learned fellows will be apt to sneer at the presumptionsneßß of one who has had but a vers limited acquaintance vith the inside of a schoolhouse writing on this question. But it can do you no harm to know who my uneducated opinions of education are. Tou don't believe in over-educating the masses because you think it unfits them for manual labor. Being amongst those who believe that we are living in the dawn of an era when it will be generally acknowledged that man's highest title is man, and when all artificial class distinct tions will cease to exist. lam unable to understand why there should be any difference between the education of the classes and the masses, and I don't believe that it is possible to over-eduoate if the education were of the right sort. We want education productive of brain power. The rough diamond is better than polished braes. '1 he great fault of the present system is that it does but little more than cultivate the faculty of memory. There was an illiterate man who told me not long ago that his children had all passed the sixth standard, "But," he said "Yon would be wonder how little they know." And the same remark is applicable to many who have had the advantages of what is called secondary and collegiate education—-it is surprising how little they know. And it is not surprising. The studying of dead languages is little or no better thai, mere waste of precious time. A speaker a*, a meeting of one of these polishing institutions called High Schools recently to'd his audience that if was ouly those who

have the privilege of getting this so-

> galled higher eduoation that are capable ' of taking a leading part in politics, or a place in the world of mind. Now, sir, I want to tell you and your readers something different. It is an historical fact that nearly all the great minds that have illuminated the world have been the minds of self*educated men, mostly sprung from the sons of toil. The immortal Shakespeare, though born of gentle parents, was bred in poverty, and consequently largely self made. Robert Burns was a ploughman, Hugh Millar was a stonemason, George Stevenson was an illiterate coal-pit labourer, and Michael Farraday wag a stable boy. These are a fen of the names that will never be forgotten, and yet it is hinted that without this aecondary eduction we are only fit to bo hewers of wood and drawers of water. Why there are hun« dretis of M.A.'a and B.A/s with no more brain power than a learned parrot or an educated donkey; they are nenrly as plentiful as sparrow's, and about as useful. If our present system of cram is continued the next generation will have more trouble with the degree pest than we have with the sparrow pest. But it is not because a boy pusses the sixth or any Standard that he imagines himself too good for manual laboar, but because of our false and foolish ideas of what con-

etitutes a respectable occupation or _ calling. What nature fits us for js what woild be most congenial to ue, and what we would be most useful and successful at. No nan is dishonored by a useful calling. A gcod scavenger is a more useful member of society, and consequently a more honorable member of society, than a brainless doctor or a pettifogging lawyer. Nothing can surpass the absurdity of qualifying for learned pro.- . fessions men who have hardly sufficient " brains to enable them to swing around a lamp post. The diamond may be worth polishing, but we want to get it first. Our doctor?, lawyers, and teachers, etc., ought to be drawn from the cream of our moral intelligence; theirs should be the highest intellect and integrity available, and it is the duty of Legislatures and Governments to promote only the higher " education of such, whether they are the children of rich or poor.—l am, etc., W#. L. Duncan. Kakahu Bush, February 25th, 1887 r