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Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 11, 19 October 1871, Page 2

However divergent opinions tnay. be as to plan or form in which it is the duty of a State to carry out the education of the people, We believe that there can be but one opinion as to the fact that, in some plan or form, the duty should most properly devolve upon the State of providing, so far as enactments may be powerful, for the supply of ordinary education to every child in the State, and therefore ultimately to every person comppsing its society. Of course, as we have Said above,, there arc many find most divergent opinions as to the exact form or plan in which this provision for State'cducation should take, these opinions having latterly resolved themselves pretty accurately into two distinct clauses: the opinions of those who believe that the education of a child should be inseparable from a training, in some form of religious faith, and those who maintain that the teaching of .religion, in any shape, is altogether apart from, and unnecessary to, the education of the young. The advocates of these two sets of opinions have been promulgating them ;vcry freely in New Zealand for many months past, in consequence first of the avowed intention on the part of the Government to introduce a scheme for public education, and subsequently of the introduction by them of such a measure! Unfortunately in the expression of their opinions none of the parties wo have mentioned can be said to have acted towards the other with that forbearance which all men should feel for the honest convictions of an opponent. The secularists have been unable apparently to see, that throughout the history of the world, our great modern religion was for hundreds of years the solo protector of the cause of education, and that in bygone times, the great men who thought

and worked for the welfare of their country and their kind, had learned philosophy and read the pages written by wise men under the beneficial teachings. of a cloistered monk, who had taught them at once to venerate the Ruler of the Universe whilst they explored the wonders of His works, or gathered wisdom from the words of pantheistic writers. And again, those who .now will -consent to- no system of education but that which is known as denominational seem to forget, in the bitterness with which they talk of those opposed to them, that in the vast strides which a few late years have produced in all human learning, there has arisen amongst many .good and distinguished men a disinclination m any way to fetter religious faith by dogmatic teachings, or connect the development of the mind with the inculcation of any peculiar tenets of faith. From these causes, then, it has happened that the question at issue has seldom been debated in that spirit of •consideration on each side which might lead to some plain and practical result, and the Government therefore, never slow to take advantage of anything that may strengthen them, have withdrawn the Education Bill, which we are honestly convinced they introduced with reluctance, as knowing it was one in connection with which, whatever views they might adopt, they were certain to offend many adherents. Indeed, it was evident from the first that they were unprepared to grapple with the points at issue in a fair, liberal, and yet determined spirit, and that therefore their efforts to please all parties, would, as the backnied words go, please nope’. .For this break-'down of all effort do provide a general scheme of education througlioutthe colony, all men who have have the interests of the young, rather the quarrels of secularists and denominatiohalists at heart, will feel deeply sorry. A full year must elapse before 'another imove . can? be made in .the matter, and in the meantime the country must go peddling on with its numerous provinces providing in certain petty ways for education.- Some general system, it must be admitted, would, it cannot be denied, have been better' than none, and, pending the ultimate triumph of secularist or denominationalist, the people would, we are satisfied, have been content with the establishment of a means by which their children might have been taught that in this life asi n the next the extraneous advantages of rank with wealth and tittle should be as nothing in comparing man with man.