SECULAR EDUCATION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 217, 28 March 1872, Page 7

SECULAR EDUCATION.

Sir Davit! Weddpi'burn, M.P., at Ayr, ) sppjiHng of the education question in. Scotland, said:— "lt is much to lie regretted that we should have las' three years — that the children of the ' uneducated masses in our large cities should for three years have been without the means of education which a good measure would have afforded if I passed at the beginning of the present Parliament. On the other hand, in this delay I believe there are some compensating advantages. We in Scotland know our own minds better than we did three years ago, and the experiences afforded by the history of the same question in the sister kingdoms are most instructive. I believe now the Scotch people are quite' prepared for a- really undenominational and compulsory systom of education.—(Applause). By the word ' undenominational ' f clearly do not mean a Pres byterian system ; still less do I mean a system of "concurrent endowment, in Which the national schools shall teach the religion of the majority, and in which grants-in-aid of the schools or j other deuominations shall be made from i the public funds. Becides," if in Eng- ; land we have an Anglican system and in Scotland a' Presbyterian system, there can be no doubt that we must throw the existing national schools in Ireland into the hands of the Roman Catholic majority. I see only one way of escape from this danger, and that is by excluding from national rate supported schools the teaching of dogmatic religion and by leaving to each denomination the duty of instructing its own children in its own particular creed. — (Applause). There 1 is another reason why I think this will be necessary. There may and undoubtedly will be conscientious scrnples against exerting compulsion in regard to attendance on schools protected even by a most stringent conscience clause. Compulsion will never work where there is even a suspicion of religious proselytising, but if our schools are conducted on truly national principles, I believe that compuj^ion might with safety be adopted. Tf not adopted, I feel satisfied that the Education Act will be a dead letter in those very places where it is now most required." Upon the same subject, Mr. Orum Ewing, M.P., in addressing his constituents at Paisley, remarked :

— "The only solution of the difficulty at which I can arrive — and by which I shall abide — after much anxious thought, and with. a sincere regard for the godly upbriuging of the young, is that, a national education cannot be carried on with any degree of fairness and harmony unless religious catechisms and formulas of every kind are excluded, and the State confines itsalf to giving secular education only, leaving it to other parties to impart religious instruction at separate hours. lam of opinion that under such a system, where teachers would be selected for their attainments in their particular department, sounder and better religious instruction would be given than in any other."