BISHOP NEVILL'S ADDRESS.

Evening Star, Issue 7277, 30 July 1887, Page 3

BISHOP NEVILL'S ADDRESS.

TO THE BDITOB. Sib,—Allow me through your columns, as affording the earliest opportunity, to record my protest against Bishop Nevill's implication that our national system of education is responsible for the lack of modesty and for tlie " knowledge of evil and an allowance of evil thoughts that exhibited itself in ways the most disgusting" on the part of the girld of this country. His Lordship has, I am aware, travelled much in this part of the Colony, and his opportunities of observation have been very great, but I understood him to say that in this particular matter ho had based his opinion on what had been told him by others, and not on what he had himself seen or heard. Seeing that the charge is such a serious one, I should have thought that His Lordship, before giving to it the weight of his authority, would have taken the best means at his command for ascertaining whether or not it is well founded. I do not profess to have more than an acquaintance with the publio schools of this City, but as far as that knowledge goes I venture to say that the Bishop's charge will not lie against the great bulk of the girls attending them. There are, we know, black sheep in every flock, and it may be that there are, among the 2,000 or so girls attending the City schools, some whose behavior and morality are far from what they should be. But these cases are very few, and if they were inquired into it might perchance be found that they are traceable directly to the laxity, if not entire absence, of parental control. The girls in our schools to-day, who in a few years will be the mothers of another generation, are, taken altogether, quite as moral and pure-minded as their mothers: and I am convinced that, if the worthy Bishop makes inquiries himself, he would be obliged to admit the correctness of my conclusion, and will withdraw an imputation that is absolutely foundationless. The defects of our education system are known to and admitted by many men in the community who have striven, and are still endeavoring, to have them corrected. These men deplore, quite as muoh as the Bishop, that such things should be, and hope to see the public conscience aroused to a sense of the dangers of their oontinuance. But they will, I am convinced, join with me in challenging the truth of the Bhhop's assumption that the State system of education is chargeable with the evils that he lays at its door.—l am, etc., J. W. Jaqo, Chairman George street School Committee. Dunedin, July 30.