THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1881. SIR GEORGE GREY AT THE THAMES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2240, 3 May 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1881. SIR GEORGE GREY AT THE THAMES.

SECOND EDITION.

The ex-Premier has started anew on the war-path, and his rest at Kawau certainly does not appear to have improved his ideas, or rendered hia utterances more straightforward. Ho still carries the suppressio veri, suggestio falsi, to a wonderful length ; in fact, he appears to have made a complete science of the process. On a certain celebrated occasion he alluded to the Premier’s constituents as being “ country bumpkins,” and, consequently, quite ready to swallow anything that might be placed before them. What Sir George’s opinion of his own constituents may he is quite clear from the description of mental food he serves up before them. Indeed, if it wore not that he is aware that his speech is read the length and breadth of the colony, there is no knowing to what lengths he might not go amongst these simple minors, who would, apparently, cheer lustily if be told them that the moon was made of cheese.

Lot us examine Sir George’s views on the principal public questions of the day. He commences by railing at the property tax, and says that “ it robs the inhabitants hero and leaves the great holders of property resident in England free.” He then proceeds to quote the case of the Hon. Mr. Tollemache, who sent £l6#o as his share of the tax, and asks, if one man in England found himself undercharged £I6OO, what would be the effect with regard to absentees at large ? Now Sir George Grey knew perfectly well that Mr. Tollemache’s case was a peculiar one—that the money on which he paid the tax was lent in London, and the interest paid in London, and that no tax yet devised here could touch him. Sir George knew well enough that i nineteen-twentieths of large property holders resident in England did not do business in this way, and yet he absolutely wished his hearers to infer that the property holders as a rule were able to shirk the tax. A clearer attempt to impose upon a number of ignorant men it is impossible to conceive. Then as to immigration. When the present Government came into power they found that a number of immigrants had been ordered out from Home, and they found, moreover, in the pigeon-holes the correspondence carried on by Sir George Grey with reference to relieving the Mother Country of its paupers. And yet the very man who gave the order and carried on the correspondence, calmly appeals “ to the miner delving in the solitude of the bowels of the earth” with reference to an imaginary influx of Chinese with which, even if such an influx were contemplated, the Government has no more to do than it has with the laws of the Chinese Empire itself. Moreover, he trios to frighten these simple miners with a picture which certainly is entirely beside the labor question. “ Should they (the Chinese) come here and spread leprosy, as they had done in every country to which they had gone ? ” Sir George, after referring to the Representation question, proceeds to attack the Legislative Council, one pet grievance being that a gentleman was taken from the Christchurch R.M. Court and placed there. The very able gentleman who introduced and carried our present Education Bill, is of course alluded to. All we can say on this matter is, that if Sir George can make as good a case for his appointments to that Council, it would bo well for him. And then he runs a muck re the Patetere block against the present Premier, and the Chief Judge. We should have thought that the state in which the Government bargains for land with the Natives were found when the present Government entered into office would have prevented Sir George from entering on this, to him, extremely delicate subject. After these few items of direct attack Sir George lapsed into his usual generalities. “If the present state of things,” he said, “ were to be perpetuated it would become increasingly difficult to lead a virtuous life.” This must have touched up the simple miners in Ithe raw. Their well-known struggles after an ideal life would evidently become more and more of an uphill work unless Sir George, allied once more with Mr. Sheehan, came to the front. But a beam of hope still bums, we are glad to say, for a few lines further down in the speech we are delighted, but somewhat surprised to learn, considering what had gone before, that “ a younger and more virtuous generation were arising which would carry the desired reform to a glorious consummation.” Whether this younger and more virtuous generation took their cue from Mr. Hall or Mr. Sheehan, Sir George does not mention, but the fact is cheering in any case. Of any desire to put forward any well matured plan to bring about the Greyito millenium the ex. Premier is as innocent as a horse. Probably the simple miners would not have cheered so enthusiastically if ho had bored them with details. Individuals who are constantly delving in the solitude of the bowels of the earth notoriously love their liquor undiluted.

THEORIES ON EDUCATION. Theories on education may be said to be almost numberless, and most varied conclusions are drawn from everyday data. For instance, a ploughing match took place the other day at the Bell Block, near New Plymouth, and it happened that there were very few competitors in the boys’ class. Immediately, the “ Taranaki Herald ” published an elaborate article, blaming the educational

system for this unfortunate occurrence The present system, it •aid, is training up I a race of clerks, and it inculcates almost I solely a desire to answer a number of questions on abstruse subjects. What ought to be done is to cultivate amongourboyaintha country a taste for rural pursuits, and hero the class-book on “ Agriculture,” amongst the Irish National Series, should be extensively used; while, in the towns, books on trade should be added to the curriculum. The present kind of instruction is, says the “ Herald,” the work of theorists who have arranged their system on “an arithmetical basis.” Our northern contemporary is evidently laboring under the somewhat common delusion that the average of our children ate trained up to an unpleasantly abstruse point. If the writer had studied the fourth standard, and had recognised the fact that that standard contains the maximum amount of knowledge that the bulk of the children acquire, he might perhaps have used a less fantastic expression than that of an “ arithmetical basis.” It is all nonsense to assert that our children are educated above their class, and that the only aim of the framers of the Education Act was to form a nation of clerks. The book on agriculture in the Irish School Series is, no doubt, a good enough book its way, but agriculture, like chemistry, is one of those subjects that must be taught practically. The study of a text-book on chemistry without admission to a laboratory is worse than useless, and, unless the master is prepared to turn out into the field and plough along with his alumni and explain the various processes of farming, he had much better leave agricultural instruction to the parents. Schoolmasters have enough subjects to master in all conscience. They aro supposed, besides the ordinary branches of learning, to possess angelic voices and lead the school choir. A model master is, besides, a sucking Rubens, and can draw a circle on his blackboard along with Giotto.fjlf, besides these minor accomplishments, ho is to possess a knowledge of agriculture and give practical instruction in boot-making, carriage building, tailoring and other trades, we shall have to look out for our instructors in another planet. The vil- , lagers in Goldsmith’s “ Deserted Village ” used to wonder that the small head of the schoolmaster could contain so much knowledge :

And still they gazed and still the wonder grew. That one email head should carry all he knew. If the head of the simple schoolmaster above alluded to was full nearly to bursting point, how about the cranium of the model schoolmaster as painted by the “ Taranaki Herald p ”