COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 167, 20 April 1871, Page 7

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

M. de Lnveleye, in his work on Ci>:npul.H)ry Education, mentions that he was once passing through the Tyrol, when he fell in with a peasant's wife, and their conversation gradually turned to the subject of her children. " Do they go to school ?" inquired M. de Laveleye. " Certainly they do," she replied, " the law compels them to do so. Is it not so in your country ?" When he answered her in the negative, she received the information with a look of incredulity and astonishment. "Is it possible," she exclaimed, " that there is any country in the world in which parents are permitted to commit with impunity the crime of not having their children instructed ?" This Tyrolese peasant woman went to the very root of the matter when she stigmatised as a crime this dereliction of duty by parents, and recognised as imperative the authority of the State to prevent or to punish it. Years ago Mr. Nassau Senior formulated the whole question in a series of propositions, which are in reality based upon principles originally laid down by Puffendorf. Mr. Senior's propositions were these .—l.. — 1. The end of society is to protect the rights of individuals. 2. Children have the same right to social protection as adults. 3. Instruction is as necessary to a child as sustenance. 4. Parents are just as much bound to educate their children as to maintain them. 5. Society ought to see that the child is taugfit as well as fed. These dicta have received the approbation of nearly every Social Science Congress that has been held on the Continent of Europe, and notably of one which met at Frankfort, a few years ago, and devoted particular attention to the subject of compulsory education. We remember to have been much struck, a few years ago, by a pithy remark which fell from the pen of M. Laboulaye — Une democrat ic ignorante, said he, est tine democratic condamnee. There could be no more terrible illustration of the truth of this aphorism than is supplied by the collapsed France. More than one-third of the young soldiers in the .French army can neither read nor write. Twenty per cent of the whole population between the school ages receive no instruction whatever, and oue-bali of the children inscribed upon the school liats never attend. Out of nearly forty millions of people, only twenty millions have learned to read and write. On the other hand, it is almost superfluous to point out the power which has annihilated the military strength of France, in one which has made the compulsory education of its people its policy for years past, and stands at the head of all European nations in respect to the cultivated intelligence of its population. We, too, have to ponder well on the declaration that an ignorant democracy is a doomed democracy, and, in obedience to the mere instinct of self-preserva-tion, it becomes our paramount duty to insist upon the education of all as one of the indispensable safe-guards of society, and as the necessary complement to our political institutions. Protestants will scarcely require to be remiuded that the principle of compulsory education is identical in its origin with the Reformation in Germany. Martin Luther, in a circular letter which he addressed to the municipal corporations 'in 152 i, impressed upon thorn this fVu-t, that every citizen is as much bound to educate his children as to lake up arms for the defence of his country, and that where the former is ueglected the State should step in and insist upon its fulfilment. So that when Frederick William of Prussia, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, published a royal ordinance in virtue of which every child who had not received confirmation was compelled to present himself or herself for instruction, that monarch was but giving practical effect to the principles laid down by the great reformer. For nearly two centuries Prussia has enjoyed the advantages of a system of public education which has been obligatory upon all classes of her population, and it would be an interesting subject of inquiry to ascertain how far that circumstance may have be( n conducive to the transformation of au insignificant kingdom into a great empire. The machinery by which the compulsory principle is carried out in Prussia is this : Every year, at Easter, the burgomaster of the commune prepares a list of all the children in his district who are entering upon their 6th year, that being the commencement of the school a<*e as prescribed by law. A copy of this list is forwarded, to ministers of all denominations, and parents are warned against transgressing the enactment in this respect. Of course they are at liberty to educate their children at home, or to send them to private school ; but they must satisfy the president of the local school board that they are adopting one of these courses. Children are not allowed to be employed in any industrial occupation if it interferes with their instruction ; and many factories and workshops have schools attached to bhern. In the common schools, as we should call them, the roll is read over svery morning, the names of absentees recorded, and a list of all such is sent in once a week to the president of the 3chool board, who summons the parents af the truants before him, and if necessary reprimands them. In cases of contumacy, they are liable to a fine or

imprisonment. But instances of this kind are very rare, for the force of habit is stronger than law; and i' is believed that, if the compulsory p'-hi-ciple were abolished in Prussia, custom would prove as efficacious as restraint. In the year 1867, out of 2,943,251 children in that kingdom between the school ages, 2,758,472 were attending the communal schools, 70,220 were being educated in piivate establishments, and 114,559 were undergoing instruction at home, or in schools of a higher grade, so that the educational net did not suffer a single fish to escape from it. Public instruction in Switzerland is compulsory, the three small cantons of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden being exempted from the operation of the law owing to their purely pastoral character. Geneva is similarly exempt, because any such regulation would be superfluous in a canton where, a diligent search having instituted some years since for an illiterate man, only one could be found, and he turned out to be a Savoyard ! In all the other cantons parents omitting to send their children to school, or to provide for their instruction at home, render themselves liable to a fine or imprisonment. There is a central board nominated by the cantonal government, and a local board elected by the communal authorities, and under the control of these bodies there are no less than 7000 primary schools. In proportion to its population, Switzerland spends six times as much \ipon the education of its people as the wealthy French nation does. And the quality of the instruction imparted is of the highest value and utility. It includes the rudiments and most of the applied sciences, agricultural, domestic economy, the laws of health and the use of arms. In some of the large towns the boys are organized into military corps, are trained to rifle and artillery practice, and once a year go into encampment, so as to qualify them to perform all the duties of a soldier. In the manufacturing town of Winterthur, which many tourists will remember as lying halfway between Constance and Zurich, the inhabitants, who number no more than 5000, have recently erected three magnificent schools, in the midst of spacious pleasure-grounds, and the least costly of these edifices involved the outlay of upwards of £20,000. The canton of Zurich, to which Mr. Duffy referred in his speech a few weeks ago, comprising a population of 266,265 inhabitants,' expends £60,000 per annum upon primary instruction. We shall be within the mai'k in estimating that this is equivalent to £180,000 in Victoria. This is actually £15,000 in excess of what the Government of Victoria, with its 750,600 inhabitants, appropriates to the maintenance and extension of corrnion schools. — " Australasian."

"A novel method of advertising one of the candidates for Greelong East, appears," says the " Advertiser," "to have been adopted the other evening by some of the most factious of his supporters. At a rather early hour, a gentleman who had occasion to pass the Sardinia Hotel, had his attention arrested by the eccentric movements of two placards, bearing the inscription ' Vote for Dr. Health,' in letters of the largest size. The bills were evidently posted in close proximity to the ground, and were performing a slow revolution, as it" imbued with life. On close inspection it was found that the heads and legs of two sturdy labourers projected beyond them. Soundly they slumbered, unconscious of the fact that their shoulders had been utilised for advertising: purposes by the billposter. But the most laughable part of the story remains to be told. Subsequent inquiry revealed the fact that the candidate whose name was brought so prominently under notice had addressed the electors on the previous evening at the hotel in question, and that after hearing his remarks some of the audience became so enthuisastic in their determination to support colonial industries that they devoted rather more attention to the beer barrel than was altogether prudent. Two out of the number became so overcome between the excitement of the proceedings and the depth of their potations, that on tasting the fresh air they fell into a sound slumber, from which they only awakened to discover that their backs had been decorated in the moonlight by advertising sheets, such as they never dreamt of."

It is said that heads of lettuce can be produced in winter in from twentyfour to forty-eight hours, by taking a box filled with rich earth, in which one-third part of slacked lime has been mixed and wateiing the earth with lukewarm water ; then taking seed which has been previously softened in strong brandy twenty-four hours, and sowing in the usual way. We are assured, but will not vouch for the fact, that a good sized head of lettuce may be obtained in the time mentioned.

The committee of the Permissive Bill Association, started some time time ago at the Thames, have made overtures to the various kindred societies in Auckland with a view to united action in the future. The opiniou of lnanv of the leading friends in Auckland ia in ', favour of this proposal, and it is difficult to conceive how such a very important movement can make progress without all the various sections combining to act in uuion,