STATE EDUCATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3255, 13 July 1889, Page 2

STATE EDUCATION.

! | (To the Editor.) Sin.—ln a very sensible article in your issue of yesterday, you say " if ; secular education is not in the best j interests of the state, our educational system requires to be recast, and anything loss than this would be of . vorylittlo use." Thore is more in . this than first meets tho eye, and I i commend it to, Mr V. Pike, Since , the Primate of New Zealand petitioned (in 1883) for grants in aid of schools set Qi) foot by any religious , denomination, the onem'ics of our educational system, having zealously and persistently attacked it and labored in vain to show that secular education was not in the best interests of the state, not a single argument has yet been put forward that will hold water. I have spoken to a good many christian parents on this subject, and 1 liavo not heard'one say that the moral tone of their children had been lowered or their religiouscoiiYiotionsdisturbed through the state schools, The average colonial boy of our state schools may be all you say he is, but as a matter of fact you will find tliat juvenile human nature is very much the same all over tho world. I need, not enumerate the insuperablo obstacles in the way of Mr Pyke's proposal, it will at once be seen that it is impracticable. The State cannot justly recognise any particular mode of faith, a free education is offered to all who choose to avail themselves of it, irrespective of creed, and this is all the State can do. It is the duty pf the Stale to educate the people, hut It is no part of that duty to teach religion, and more than that, all creeds should be on inequality, and each creed be self supporting, for any creed to demand State aid in the promulgation of its tenets can only bo regarded as insolent and : most unjustifiable.— I am, &c., , Scholastic Masterton, July 12tlj, 1889.