EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1308, 25 January 1868, Page 5

EDUCATION.

want of an Education BiU is just now moving the Legislature of Victoria. The Government has failed, it seems, to produce a satisfactory Education Bill. A Bill Drought down by the Attorney-General, in which the Government had hoped to steer between the two extremes of dcnominationalism and secularism bad been repealed.

The Argus regrets, and not without cause, that in a community left with, universal suffrage in full operation the means of educating the people should be as imperfect as they are. The attempt made to compromise the religious question has been a failure, and is thus alluded to by the Argus:—

Ws believe that we may learn or.o thing decisively from the failure of the Government scheme, and that is, t!io hopelessness of any compromise between the secular and denominational systems. The plan was not bad'.y devised. It proceeded from a man certainly desirous of treating the different religioun bodies with impartiality, possessed of ability to cirry out hi 3 vi-.wa, and having great influence with the mass of the people ; and yet fee how completely it failed. We thick, therefore, that we may anticipate -with confidence that the next attempt will be purely secular or purely denominational. The objections to the latter syßtem lie in its exp'-nsiveness and its tendency to intensify religious diifereiices. Two schools are rendered nece33ivy where one wou'.d suffice, and the children taught in. the one learn t'> regard those belonging to the ether wiin suspicion, if not with dislike. On the other hand, the feeling against *he seimlar system iinrfs rent in the expression " godless," which is so often applied to it. We cannot ho'p thinking that this arises from a confusion of ideas, which time and thought aro gradually charing away. It is beginning to bo apparent that it" the state gived seea'a-, and not religious instruction, it is not because it values the former moro than the latter, but because it is one with regard to the iormer and many w lb regard to tho Litter. It therefoio leaches what it is agreed upon, and refrains from teaching what it is not agreed upon. But it assigns a portion of the day to reli- ( gious instruction, and throws upon the parents, who really are the proper persons, the responsibility of providing it. It carries a step further the practice that I- at present adopted. Arithmetic and the cate* chism are not taught at the samo time now—it is further proposed that they should r.ot bo taught by the same person. let the state Fchwrnn'tar teach the former, and the clergyman or some other persoa specially appointed in each locality, the latter. This io the secular system, r>nd to this we believe public opinion all over the world is definitively tending.