EDUCATION SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 112, 7 November 1912, Page 2

EDUCATION SYSTEM

XO THE EDITOB. Sir,— ln view of the attempts now being made to influence public opinion, and to create a demand for altering our education system' in a way that many bf us consider would be productive of great harm', may I crave permission to give one. or two reasons why we should pause before 'allowing ourselves to be that any such tampering with our education system is an advisable ■thing. In the first place, we have a thoroughly good system as it is. The .system has put education \yithin the reach of almost all our people. As a result, our people are ttiking a keen interest in many of the questions of the time, a number of our young men, and some of our young women, too, are distinauishing themselves in our pwn and other universities, and we have produced such. men as Professor Eutherford and Professor M'Laurin, men whose reputations are world-wide. We do well tb be proud of our education system, and to take great care that it shall not be spoiled by any, however well-inten-tioned they may be. We claim not only that our system has provided a fine in* tellectual training, and of late years also a good physical training, but it is also providing a .fine moral one, in the highest sense of the wordj a religious training. But some will say its results are dibappointing, our young people fall far short of what we would desire to see them. We may fully admit all that when we remember that very many agencies for good very often fail to produce all th& good that was hoped from them. But, say the Bible-in-Schools Paity, since these young people come so short of a high ideal, the State ought to come in and teach our particular religious tenets. I have already pointed out that this is seeking to do evil that good may Come, to require the whole community to pay for promulgating the tenets of what, admittedly, is only a section, while a number of the remaining section repudiate those tenets most, earnestly^ But as some persons may be impressed by the thought that if Bibleteaching is introduced into schools, our youth will come up nearer to our ideals, it is worth while to enquire about those countries where they have Bible-teach-ing in schools. On enquiry we find that in those countries exactly the same complaints are made as here. Further, if we look to New South Wales, which has had its Bible-teaching in schools for so many years, statistics show there is. considerably more drunkenness and crime there than here. The contention, then, that our young people, or that .our com munity, will be the better for Bibleteaching in the State schools is not boine out by known facts. No one wishes to deny th£fi« our present system is capable of great intprar-stnent. It was established thirty-five years ago, but it is now much improved compared "with what it was at that time. We have reason to hope that it will go on improving, and we shall do well to welcome new methods that ha ve^ been tested elsewhere, or thatj after careful consideration, seem to promise well. So far as I have hoard, the advocates for Bibleteatbing in our schools, they have not even claimed that their proposals will improve education as such, they seem even to have abandoned the old idea thai the Bible should be taught as an English classic, and they are more lion* cst hi not putting forward that claim; but, stripped of mere verbiage, what they are urging is simply the teaching of their own ideas on theology. My letter is becoming long. If the matter ia calculated to be of any interest to your readers, I •will deal in a further lett«r with a totally different reason for conserving our present education system.— I am, etc., CHAS. J. COOKE. Kelbnrne, 6th Nov., 1912.