MR TURNBULL AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12551, 12 July 1901, Page 4

MR TURNBULL AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

I Something like dismay must have been felt by Mr TumbulFs sup-porters in the approaching by-electioa when be told his audience in the Theatre Royal last night that he was in favour of 'granting subsidies from the public purse to denominational schools. A large majority of the electors arc so determined in their opposition to any departure from the secular character of our present system- of education, that no candidate who was " unsound" on this particular question would have the slightest- chance of going to Parliament as the representative of Christchurch. Mr Turnbull realised this fact himself. He recognised), he said, that ho was in a hopeless minority, that his views were unpopular, and that he was not likely to make them acceptable to. the majority. But 1 She* was prepared with a way out of the difficulty. He would undertake to support no departure from the, present system which did not provide for the question of denominational grants being subtaitted to a referendum. No change should be made without first consulting the people. This assurance is, under the circumstances, all we can expect. We should; have been- better 'pleased, of course, if Mr Turabull had been " sound" • on tie question himself, but we have sufficient faith dti his integrity to believe that he ■will observe both the letter and the spirit of his promise to the electors. ■. - There must be no coquetting'with the sectarian party; no Bible-reading in -schools, no concession of any kind to any denomination until the people have been consulted at the ballot-box. We have little doubt, howWer, that when Mr Tunubull ias studied- the question more closfly ihe wilt require no pledge to kee-p him from assailing the system. The young politician is often inclined to look with favour upos religious instruction. The very term itselfi has a full, round fla.rc.ur, which appeals to his imagination. But when lie comes to understand that religious instruction means the aggravation ,cf sectarian bitterness, the' increase of expenditure -and the decreaseof efficiency, the illusion passes away. This will probably be Mr Turnibiil's experience. If his present ideas were carried out we should have a score or two of denominaitional schools in each of the large poorly equipped and poorly mastered, perpetuating differences that would be 'better buried and forgotten. \■ .;: