The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1884.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4714, 15 February 1884, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1884.

The present system of education has met with much encouragement by peace-makers and those desirous of avoiding collisions with religious belief, and doubtless it has some virtue as an effort at a compromise between contending persons, but its working is proving most faulty. There is, in the:first place, the fact that various communities apparently consider its provisions inimical.to their interests.and consequently it is a bone of contention which should, in the interests of good-will amongst men, be removed. We have agitations on the part of the Churches of England and Scotland asking that Bible reading in schools be permitted, and this of course is antagonistic to the spirit of the Act, yet likely to be allowable under it We find that the Roman Catholics, not without reason, are exclaiming against having to pay their share of the tax made upon the people for educational purposes, while they have to support their own schools in addition, without receiving any of the money received by the Government for educational purposes. These are the most important reasons why some reform is necessary, but many considerations which may be of less consequence, but nevertheless deserving of attention, protrude themselves. We find very faulty working in an Act allowing an Inspector and Secretary to use it for any interested purposes, and should the machinery provided by the State for the regulation of such important matters as those under the control of those appointed to administer the Education Act, be capable of distortion for personal purposes, we demand that a change be made, and such a contingency be placed without the bounds of possibility. One of the many evils of the Act is the permissibility of cumulative voting, and herein lies a vast power of evil. Three or four persons designedly attending a meeting, called for the purpose of electing a committee under the Education Act, can out-vote six times their number, who record conscientiously one vote each 'for the men they consider best qualified to act in the capacity of school managers. Af far as our prescience will permit, we cannot but see that the administration of educational matters should be relegated to a department. The dispensation of such laws should, and undoubtedly would, be more satisfactorily performed by responsible persons, than if left—aa is now the caae—td non-liable bodiei. 2STo i

matter what direction a change takes, it is imperative that some alteration should be made, and we look forward with confidence to some of the existent anomalies being swept away during next session of Parliament.