COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 3999, 16 June 1870, Page 3

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

The Rev. W. Worker, who presided at the Port Albert anniversary meeting, on May 30, delivered an address in favour of compulsory education in country districts. He said : " Let us not suppose that education ends when the school is left ; it is to be feared that sometimes it has not then begun. It never commences till some strong interest is felt in some particular part of learning. We ought, therefore, to feel as much concerned about those who may be fifteen or twenty as we do about those who are still at school. And let me say there ought to be schools for such, of a higher order. Young men, you will forget all you have learnt, if you don't continue to learn. You will be nothing more than mental dwarfs and cripples. A book was, some time since, addressed to the boya of England — from eight to eighty. Now, whatever you may think of this, there is a great thought expressed by it, which is this — that if education begins at eight it need not end till eighty. And perhaps there is another thought expressed, namely, that reason is the highest faculty of the soul, and knowledge but the material on which it exercises itself ; so that a man's judgment is much better at fifty than at forty, and still better at sixty than it was at fifty. It is difficult to say when education really begins, and still more difficult to say when it is finished. But ita advantages are multitudinous, and of incalculable value. Everyone that enters this world has a right to be sustained in it, and everyone has an equal claim to that knowledge which shall fit him to act well his part in the world's great society. I hate to see a half-starved boy, who is made to work when he has neither knowledge nor strength for it. Those who put obstructions in the way of progress are more deserving punishment than those who fail to progress because means of advancement have not been given. Further, if education be not made compulsory, great numbers of children will remain untaught, because there are so many parents who do not fully appreciate education. If parents themselves werev well instructed, they would be anxious • . secure tuition for their children. Where there is ignorance, and consequent indifference on the part of those who are heads of households, the profit of labour, especially in a new colony, is sure to sway in their estimation much heavier than the good which learning may bring. In order to make education universal, then, ir. must be compulsory. It seems right to secure the instruction of every child by legal enactment, because ratepayers are compelled to pay for the consequence and results of ignorance. .Nothing ia ao dear as crime, and. if extended education will diminish taxation by diminishing crime, political economy says, Educate. Do not mistake my meaning. lam not saying that all criminal acts will cease through mental culture, but I do say that religion and education are sure to lessen crime, and it is for this that lam contending. Such education as I advocate must be unsectarian. If all children are to be taught, the education must be what is misnamed secular. I certainly think this term a misnomer, because it is certain that those who are the best pleaders for undenominational schools don't wish for a Godless eduoation. They ask that the distinctive points or fag-ends of the creeds may be absent, but they do not ask that an thing opposed to religion may be taught, or that something may be introduced as a substitute for it, or that religious subjects may excluded. Far be it from me to plead for educational i establishments separate from religion j but [ let me say that 1 regard all natural truths and the calm facts of. science as stamped with sacredness. God is the author of all | -truth, and all truth js sacred. This earth is connected with Heaven ; and when men shall be better instructed, all natural things will be seen in connection with spiritual. 'Let us then have efficient schools, in which everything needful for life and gladness shall be taught. And let as have ft college for the county of Maraden for all the boys in it, if not from eight to eighty, from fifteen to thirty-rauph xa shall tell a mighty tale in all these districts through all coming generations." - '

I'fcWe learn from the Melbourne Weekly .Times that "Mr. Gill,.;tfho lately, arrive^ |£on#lndia for the purpbse>of organising & company, -findatthe utmost *difficults|in obtaining artistes; He has written to Mrs. Robert Heir andTMiss Forde, bbth?'of whom «re in New Ze»l*nd, offering engagements,"