THE PEOPLE'S SHARE IN EDUCATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17335, 25 November 1916, Page 14

THE PEOPLE'S SHARE IN EDUCATION.

TO THE r.MTOR. Sir,—Permit me to correct a .statement in your report of my address on the above subject, given under tho auspices of the Educational Institute and School Committees' Association. I am reported as having said: •'The State-controlled system of compulsory education was wrong. Denominational schools should bo demanded and more utilitarian and practical methods emplovcd." I did not say anything of the kind. What I did say was that State education must be secular if no common ground of faith in anything else could bo found, but that being so, it must inevitably fail to satisfy those with whom if was truly a matter of conscience that it was inadequate. On those, however, as much as on anyone else there was cast the duty of keeping the system free from any evil infill once whatever, and that it was not sufficient for them to turn away from tho system. What I meant to show was that though particular denominations might bfi quite justified in having their own schools, they were still concerned in the general welfare, and should still endeavour to influence the State system and help to remedy any evil arising from defects which they believed it contained. The welfare of every school in the country more or less concerns everyone, and no denomination can .stand aside and say they art> only concerned with the good of those belonging to their own denomination.—l am, etc., W. M. HAMILTON.