EDUCATION.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3561, 26 May 1880, Page 3

EDUCATION.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sib,—lt seems to the writer the chief aim of all Governments is to keep the poor always poor, and to pass such laws as will keep them so. No sooner is state aid to religion abolished than state aid to education is introduced, which raises the taxes on the poor without giving them any corresponding benefit; no sooner is this done than they try to add the denominational system, under the plea that the secular system is Godless. Sir, I submit the denominational system of teaching in our schools at home have not proved their Godliness. If proof were needed go to the prisons—few of the prisoners but what acknowledge some religion, so that it cannot be said the want of knowledge of religion is the cause. We are also told larrikinism is caused through secular teaching. Sir, I submit larrilunism is as rampant in those schools, where religion is taught as elsewhere. There are various causes apart altogether from religion. One is the overcrowding of the schools. The teachers under the present system have more control over the children than the parents, for where there are so many the children are bound to learn more mis chief than schooling. Poor people cannot } afford to keep two schools, the result is they send their children to the Government schools, and they are turned out larrikins. Immigration causes larrikinism, by forcing the parents of the children to seek work elsewhere than at home—thus leaving the children to their own devices. It is the system of Government that is at fault, not the omission of religion in schools.—l am, &c,

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