The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1893.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 289, 6 December 1893, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1893.

For the causa that lacks assistance, s'cr the wroEf that needs mistancß, For the future ir. the dutanet, And ths good that ire can ao.

New Zealand is not the only country where the secular system of education is fiercely assailed. The other colonies have a similar tale to tell. In Victoria especially the spirit ofopposition displays itself in a succession of attempts to get some form of religious instruction introduced into the national schoolsParties there are much the same as with ourselves. The Protestants are not united on any plan ot I action, and the Roman Catholics are clamorously demanding a separate grant. The Victorian Minister of Education was waited upon a few days ago, by a deputation comprising representatives oi the Presbyterian Church Assembly, and members of the National Scripture Education League, and the Bible Introduction into State Schools League. These gentlemen had two requests to make. They desired that the Scriptural allusions that had been struck out of the Royal Readers should be restored, and that religious instruc- ( tion should be given during school hours. The Victorian system of education h generally considered the most intensely secular in the colonies. I When Mr Ramsay was Minister iof Education, all passages con- ! taining allusions to the Christian religion were struck out of the reading lessons. This foolish action was ! justly condemned both by the press and by public sentiment as insulting to a Christian community, and at the same time destructive of the sense of many of the finest literary compositions included in the Reading Books. So strong was public feeling that Parliament recently ordered that the expurgated passages should be restored, and the Minister assured the deputation that the resolution adopted by the Legislature on the subject was being carried into effect. The arguments of the deputation in favour of religious instruction in schools, were the same to which the people of this colony have been so often treated. The Minister was assured that thousands of children were growing up without religious education, and that if a plebiscite were taken an overwhelming number of the people would be found in favour of the proposed change. In reply, Mr

Baker said that if all the Churches] could agree to formulate a system of Scripture lessons, he was sure Parliament would consent to such an arrangement. He.reminded them at the same time of the political difficulty caused by the attitude of the Roman Catholics, who, in Victoria, form onefirth of the population. The members of the deputation seemed to think the Protestants could agree upon a text book, but they did not pretend that the Roman Catholics would join them. According to a Melbourne journal, "what is evidently desired by the advocates of religious instruction by the schoolmasters is to make the State schools Protestant schools and to give the Roman Catholics a separate grant to enable them to maintain schools of their own." If tins view be correct, the Protestants in Victoria are prepared to go a step further than the advocates of the Irish Text-book in this colony. Some ot >ur champions for the introduction of Mse Text-book into, schools have asserted that it would take away from the Roman Catholics a legitimate ground of complaint. In Victoria, on the other hand, the promoters of a similar measure seem to take it for granted that the logical sequence is a separate grant So Roman Catholic schools. This is a view we have always held. The ijfliculties in Viciona are as insuperable as in our own colony. A grant to one religious body, even if the others agreed to it, is simply out of Ihe question. If Protestants and Catholics could agree on some common form of religious instruction in the Stale schools, something might be effected, but in each colony ihere is a strong determination on the part of the public not to end- ,iin any proposals ' that favour even usotely a return to i the pernicious sj vi of denominai tional education.