The Northern Advocate. EDUCATION.

Northern Advocate, 8 September 1888, Page 2

The Northern Advocate. EDUCATION.

All the world over there is a growing conviction that the systems of educa* tion carried on are of the most questionable character, and that it neither tends, to make useful men nor law abidin^Natisens. This is especially the case in England, America, and in New Zealand. In a recent article oa "Social Problems and Bemedies, Archdeacon Farrar in speaking of this subject, said, "It is moie painful to confess our disappointment as to the high hopes which were once attached to the spread of national education That the Act of 1870 has produced many blessed effects we most thankfully admit, but has failed to achieve anything like so much as we had once anticipated. "'Popular education" says Professor Goldwin Smith "ha« gone far enough to make the masses £J nk T not . far enou gk to make them • fcnink deeply : they read what falls in with their aspirations, and their minds run in the grooves thus formed; flattermg theories make way rapidly, and like religious doctrines, are imbibed withsut examination by credulous and ua«,

critical minds." A strong and ever stronger conviction is arising in manyminds that our exisiting scheme of national education requires radical revision. It produces poorer intellectual results than the educational system of France and Germany at far greater cost. It is too doctrinaire ; too much an education of books, and facts, and cram, and inspectors, and examinations; too little an education of the hand and the heart. It leaves thousands without any means of earning their bread, while it widens the area of bitter discontent. It does not in the least enable us to hold our own against foreign competition. It tends disastrously to mutiply the appalling superfluity of struggling clerkdom. "After twenty years of education," says the Eev. S. D. Barnett, as the result of his experience in the East End, "we have neither [taught selfrespect nor the means of earning a livelihood ; our streets are filled with a mob of careless youths, and our labour markets overstocked with -workers whose work is not worth fourpence an ho^." Not only so, but the present system of education tends to foster habits of indolence, the most productive sourde of crime. The couplet of Dr. Watt'B " Idle boys and men are found, Standing on the Devil's ground." is well known, and a more recent divine once said " That the devil tempted the industrious man, but that the indolent man temptedjthe very devil. On this subject the New York Tribune says : Neither Sunday-school nor day-school training, nor even temperance, are fullest safeguard against criminality. The most common fact about convicts seems to be that tb.sy were never taught habits of industry. This is the case with iiine-tenths of those in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, •while quite a large proportion received a "good common schooling," and about one-fifth were abstainers from drink. Of 1,500 at Joil6t, in Illinois 1,087 were fairly educated ; 129 were coEege graduates, 413 classed as intemperates, 784 moderate drinkers, 317 total abstainers. Of 668 admitted last year, two-thirds have no trade. Evidently, it is time to give the hands more to do in our schools than merely turning over books and using pencils and pens. 1 '