EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4391, 9 December 1875, Page 3

EDUCATION.

To the Editor of the Herald.

Sir, —It is quite evident, from the heading of the dreary diatribe on public school matters in your issue of the Bth inst., that " W.J. N.," like too many others who take advantage of the liberality of your correspondence columns to express very illiberal opinions, is determined to deal unfairly with the existing system of instruction in this province. The question is not secular versus religious education, —Caasar against God, — but, if I understand anything about the matter, it is this : How shall the problem of the education of the youth of an unsettled, scattered, and multi-sectarian community be more satisfactorily solved than by the Siato cloing what has been attempted amongst ourselves ? The consideration of the educational question put in this form transfers the discussion to much higher ground than that usually taken, —removes it, in fact, quite outside the preserves of party and sect—dangerous domains. Let us hope the next time your verbose correspondent strips his literary sleeve he will favour the public with his solution of the vexsd subject, put in its proper form. One word as to the proofs of "W. J. N.'s" facts. The Boston Pilot is not a reliable authority on any question relating to public school instruction in Massachusetts. It is neither supported nor read by the public, nor does it retlect in any degree or sense public opinion. I can positively affirm that, during a residence of some years in the city of Boston, I never saw the Pilot on the table of any public library, institute, or reading-room within the bounds of the city wherein it is published. Then as to "that eminent Frenchman" : That gentleman knew too well the value of his professorship in Harvard University to make any such wild, untruthful, and unqualified assertion as is quoted. For some years the great part of his daily life was spent in finishing the work, the foundation of which, in the majority of cases, was laid in the public schools of Massachusetts aud other States. The readers of the Herald may rely on this, that Professor Agassiz would not traduce the daughters of those whose sons he was in the daily habit of instructing, and for myself, until further proof is forthcoming, I shall consider the statement a libel on the Professor, as I know it to be a gross libel on the system of public school instruction in the State referred to. Statistics will go far to prove that the unfortunate class so uublushingly named in connection with the system of education dear to every New Englander, is recruited mainly from importations of another class.—l am, &e. Massachusetts.