The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1885. STATE EDUCATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2130, 27 October 1885, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1885. STATE EDUCATION.

The Kev. D. fi, Fitchett has delivered a lecture in Melbourne on the subject of" Free Trade in Education," the whole tendency of which is lo the effect that the State should not trouble itself about Education at all. The reveernd gentleman has read Spencer, and quotes from his reply to J. Stuaht Mill, in which he argues that Education does not fall within the province of the state, while towards the end he says that it is an error to suppose that the State has any facilities for carrying on education which, in a well developed community, are not at the service of private enterprise. He quotes the following from tlio later writings of Mill:—"A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another, and as the mould in which it caßts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the Government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the • existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body, Thus State Education has no intrinsic excellency thatweshould des.'reit forits own sake." We quite agree with the last sentence. There are many things that we do not desire for their own sake; but we find that we want them all the same for other and more important purposes. Wo do not want education for its own sake at all, but for the benefits which it confers directly upon those who are being educated, and indirectly on the community at large. The statement that State Education is a contrivance for moulding people to bo exactly like one another is utterly fallacious, for the simple reason that each pupil has a disposition and inclination of his own, which no amount of teaching will mould into a shape to which it is not already predisposed. If education were left entirely to itself, it would rapidly degenerate. We would seo numbers sinking into the depths of ignorance, from thence into poverty, and, in many instances, into crime. So far as State Education in New Zealand is concerned it has established no despotism, no influence whatever, over the mind, while, as far as the body is concerned, there is not a man, woman, or child, who does not feel thoroughly free and independent of the Government. The only object State Education aims at is to provide such facilities that everybody may fit himself to take a fair position in the world—that he may be ablo to read and write, and to think for himself. It teaches no doctrines. The pupil of a State school is not told that one form of government is better than another, that one trade is more lucrative than another, or that he will find it to his advantage to profess one particular religious creed. So far as the State is concerned, he is allowed to settle all that for himself, He is simply afforded the means of judging these things intelligently, and that is all. The statement that private enterprise has equal facilitiesfor carrying on education with the State is a dangerous fallacy, for, in the first place, private enterprise is not always .ready to supply the want, while, oven

if it were, the people would not always avail themselves of "it so. readily. In the second, the ment. of State Education would lead to the adoption of different systems, many of which would be inferior. The very title of the lecture is a misnomer, for while State Education provides means for learning free of cost to the people, it can scarcely be said to partake of the nature of protection.