REV. J. WATERS ON EDUCATION.

Clutha Leader, Volume VI, Issue 339, 9 April 1880, Page 6

REV. J. WATERS ON EDUCATION.

At our request Mr Waters has kindly amplified some of the remarks made by Hini at the Kaihiku Soiree on Friday ' eveni&g 26th ult. ,. and has handed us the saraiTfor publication. some preliminary sentences, Mr Waters said :— " Education has perhaps at this day a higher place in public thought thah^ever it has had in time past. Never, perhaps, go much as now, has it been realised that it is, and must be, one of the i main means of human perfection and^pro- ; gress. This must be the case with man because he is rational. The mere animal with instinct for his law, is born with his clothing on, or safely soon to grow spontaneously out of his skin. Nature produces also his food ready cooked for him, and has endowed him with instincts which speedily unfold in him the proper habits to guide him surely to shun what he should shun, and, pursue what he should, pursue. While man is very different, he is, and ever has, been, born naked, and: nature produces infinitely little suitably; ready to be his food— only in very earliest infancy can nature diet the child man.' Nor is he endowe^with instincts sufficient to unfold Jin him a proper character. It is evident, therefore, that he. must be formally and perseveringly educated. He needs skill, that out of the raw materials nature; yields, he , may cover himself with suitable clothing, and prepare for himself suitable .food, and skill , alsio to have developed in himself a character suitable to his capacities, and to be, the condition and guarantee, of his perfect and permanent weal. For one main thing education is meant to fit the individual; to exercise his or her own private judgment wherever human interests may turni up,, or in whatever line man's responsibilities, may lie. This right of ; individual opinipTx is man's great prerogative , ;and i not instinct is within himself, his main guidance, and that whether,, the be civil or be sacred. His .knowledge' must be ,intelli r gent knowledge, and his rfoith intelligent faith. . Without this there can be really neither- commendable, citizenship nor rewardable religion. This ability to exei'cise private judgment, jor form on^'s own opinion, is man's, main 1 prerogative and .his greatest responsibility. Citizenship for; this world, and religion, for the next : are made alike dependent on it. An enlightfenpd educalion is , not one,: that merely trains the .human being to be little else than 1 an ; industrial, commercial or military; expert; \ A, nation of such experts might soon becomes mass of wreck on the; face of nature. : Qreece and^ Rome of old are , instances.! Education, .must do much ; more than develop t merely* such expert-, ness, it must aim at inculcating. the right i of s . priyate ; . judgment^ aiid at. putting the mind in possession, joi ;the^".inr formation; needed for the exercise of such prerogative. : Then only is the Cityior State strong,; and : then only can its progress ,be .steady and junliraited." Every ; nqn-Erotestant anil heathen nation on .the face of this earth have erred here. They^haye ; -ciplated the great prerogative, ; that every man Has a right to form and express his own opinion regarding; his own weal and that of Jfche civil or sacred community to whiclih^belorigs.; j Heathen 4 and > non-Protestant., [teachers and 5 rulers • , have obstinately : denied' this, prerogative, and persistently 'taughtf 'the ppposite, therefore, ; are those : in^iQDS internally.. j so, unsafe,, and exter-r ' --nally sp.-.Tveak."; An education- that , 'fit man- for, ;hif5 r functions;. mu3t aim at ,. Reaching -him to be free. ■ It must teacK 'Mm that the right of private judgment is; a main j>illar of the State and of the Church alike. This is true conservatism.

And within .Christendom there is the great; scheme of, Popery, which 'is a system of liondage biiilt as on one pillar^ upon the denial of the nght 6f private judgement. And it seems that, however expert men may be in reference to commerce and war, Her education, with its fat.il denial of th© right of the individual reason, will still hold them in bondage. Taking man's.moral nature to be what it is, andtaking the determined persistence of the, Romish religious dogma to be what it is, and taking secular education with its shortcomings to be what it ia > there are overwhelming probabilities that she will be able to bring an increasing proportion - of th& community under her influence, ■ and ultimately under her bondage, and that in matters civil as well as in matters sacred. The Papacy conquers by education, and she can be defeated only by an education that will insist on the right of . the individual, to form and express his or her private opinion in the face of her determined and elaborate denial of the same. Even Free America is beginning to feel slight symptoms of the great anti-protest-ant negation. She has probably ten millions already in bondage to Rome, and there are nations of Europe whose present and past condition is proof positive that the bondaged faith and bondaged intelect is meant to control the State as well as the Church, to dogmatise over the man as a citizen as well as over him as a member of a Church. The real post to be contended foiis"The right of private judgment," and whoever will look fully into the whole case will' see that Protestant citizenship, as well as Protestant faith is, as againafc Rome, conservable only by putting the citizen and the church member alike in possession of Bible knowledge. The rootless vapours o£^-the so-called " Free Thought" few are as light as straws before the Roman dogma. They are utterly backboneless before the compact logic of Rome, for which she finds an admirable fulcram in the uneducated religious instinct of the human soul. The Bible is the one weapoa with which the Papacy's progress can be effectively checked.