HOW A PROTESTANT LOOKS ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 177, 18 August 1876, Page 13

HOW A PROTESTANT LOOKS ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

1-+ A coerespondent who signs himself " A Protestant Republican" contributes this bit of good sense ito the columns of the c New York Tribune ' :

" I was formerly a warm advocate of the free school pystem, hit my views have undergone a radical change. *W " Argue about it as we may, the system is a great injustice to the Catholics. From their point of view it is more unjustifiable than would be a union of Church and State. The relation of the teacher and scholar is far too sacred and delicate to.be left to the manipulations of coarse and selfish politicians. I have studied the system critically for 25 jearsi and during that time I have seen so many unworthy teachers appointed and preferred, and so many good ones discouraged and driven from the profession, that I am well nigh disgusted with the whole thing. There are probably in round numbers, 100,000 teachers in the United States. Their office is essentially a political one. All the politicians want is to appoint their friends and favorites to these places, eiect the school buildings, dictate the books, the course of study, in short, all the details ; thus degrading the teacher to a mere machine. One can readily imagine how this army of officials, dependent upon a corrupt administration, might become a most formidable engine of injustice and oppression. To assist poor people in the education of their children is praiseworthy, but for the State to attempt to give a liberal education to all its citizens is toa great a task. That ■we have too little education is self-evident, but we shall never get it in this country by compulsion. There is no reason why parents who are able should not provide for the education of their children the same as for food and clothing. There is no justice in compelling others to do it for them."