THE , New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1891.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8535, 8 April 1891, Page 4

THE , New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1891.

The article on education in the Herald of February 7th lias excited so much attention and comment all over the colony that without subjecting ourselves to the imputation of egotism we may fairly refer to the discussion which has ensued respecting it as illustrating the ethics of political controversy in a democratic community.

It was long since pointed out very forcibly by De Tocqueville in his admirable work on " Democracy in America," and has been since insisted on by Mr. J. Stuart Mill in his work on " Liberty," and Sir T. Erskine May in his work on " Democracy in Europe," that the great danger to democratic communities lies in the tendency to suppression of freedom of thought and action in individuals. These communities, governed as they must be by the ideas, the desires, and the aspirations of the mass, necessarily become intolerant of every proposition that runs contrary to the customs, ideas, or laws prevailing at any one period. Originality of thought, or eccentricity of conduct, is alike suppressed. When, as in the United States, there are two powerful parties, the individual is free to choose to which he will belong and within certain well-understood limits he may use language of very considerable virulence towards his political opponents. He may assail their political character to any extent, and may slander their private character to a degree only limited by a judicious fear of the cowhide or the revolver. All this gives an appearance of more than freedom—of license. But let no man dare to attack any institution or course of action common to both; let no man venture to point out the corruption, or the selfishness, or the inefficiency of both parties, and above all let no man dare to point out the disadvantages of a government by the lowest classes of the community, or the evil wrought by such a system of government, or venture to hint that the constitution of the United States is not the most perfect political institution which the human mind is capable of originating. Here we have not quite reached that pitch of intolerance. And yet we can well remember during the feverish excitement of the Public Works and Immigration policy, when money was pouring into the colony by millions annually, that a writer who had been employed on the press in Otago went home and published in one of the British magazines an article pointing out plainly and forcibly the ruinous consequences that must ensue from the continuation of the system. One universal yell of execration and abuse arose from every part of the colony. The man, whose name we forget, was accused of incompetence, of .lying, of slandering his adopted country (which he had not adopted), and, strangest of all, was taunted everywhere, in this democratic country, with being a self-educated man, who had risen from the ranks* With malicious glee the employment to which he had been brought up was mentioned, and he was told that having failed as a butcher or a tailor, or whatever it was, he had committed the unpardonable crime of having taken to journalism for a livelihood. We are not now in love, as a community, with the Public Works and Immigration policy. We have spent the money, and now have to pay the interest. We are very much in the position of the gambler who, after a night at baccarat or Napoleon, comes home in the morning and reflects with dismay on the 1.0.u.'s he has given. But we have another fetish whom we worship now with superstitious awe and affection — the education system. A writer in these columns, not for the first time, ventured to point out some defects in the working of the system. He had followed in the line which has been adopted by the New Zealand Herald for years. He said nothing more severe than had been said before, not only in these columns, but by Inspectors, teachers, and independent witnesses. He had in a previous article quoted a whole column of condemnatory extracts from inspectors' reports. He had taken exactly the same line as the writer of a leader in the New Zealand Herald of June 22nd, 1887, who commented upon the discussion at a meeting of the Auckland Educational Institute. The leader of 1887 blames the syllabus and the inspectors, and the system of cram, far more severely than the leader of February 7 does. One sentence may be quoted, to give an example of the trenchant style of the article of 1887 : — " The effect of this [the system of cram, for the purpose of passing children through the standards], as all will at once perceive, has been to saturate the minds of children with a volume of uninteresting facts and scraps of information, that cannot but prove utterly valueless to them after their school life has come to an end."

And yet no howl was raised against that article. Why is this 1 Why were the teachers who attended the meeting of the Educational Institute, which was the subject of comment, permitted the utmost freedom in criticising the inspectors, the syllabus, and their colleagues? We could cull from the report of this discussion far harder things than anything said in the February article if we had space to do so. The headmaster of the Nelson-street school had a paper read by Mr. Harrison, from which that gentleman expressed no dissent, in which the syllabus and the inspector's method of examination were both cut to pieces. " Grammar, in his opinion, was a perfect farce." " Reading, writing, and arithmetic should be the only pass subjects." " How was it that the children of aristocrats spoke with perfect grammatical correctness 1 It was because of their surroundings." This is rank blasphemy compared with our meek little article. In a discussion on the standards Mr. Purdy held that "standard examinations as a means of classification had failed." Mr. Scott blamed the teachers—"if teachers get a low average, they were the first to howl." Mr. Cooper blamed the inspectors, " the questions set were often mere riddles." Mr. McArthur (now Dr. McArthur) blamed both inspectors and syllabus. Geography, as taught, was "a sheer waste of time." 'Mr. Gulliver, himself a man of the highest culture, blames

the whole system, and says that originality in teachers would be " smothered." "What they required was to make educated men and women, who could use their brains, and this could not be done by the lumber that in the name of education, had been poured into the heads of the children. A.ll this, and much more was in the discussion on a paper by Mr. Worthington ! ; And Mr. Worthington expressed himself as pleased to see that the teachers present were in agreement with him about the syllabus! The meeting ended by adopting unanimously the course strongly advocated in the Herald, that "all inspectors 'should be under the control of the Central Department of Education, and the papers set by should be drawn up by an Examining Board of Inspectors." It cannot but be gratifying to a public writer to find that the views and opinions which he has advocated have roused the colony from one end to the other, while the very same views and opinions expressed by other persons attracted no attention whatever beyond the comments of the local paper. But. still the puzzle remains, Why has so much hostility been aroused, and that from persons who have themselves expressed the same opinions ? Was it simply because the Education Department noticed the article, and sent it round to the Boards and branches of the Educational Institute? Or was it because those interested know that the system is so rotten that it will tumble to pieces if any attempt be made to repair it, and will involve them in its ruins 1 If, as we suspect, this is the veritable cause of the Billingsgate that has been let loose on us, then we think that our opponents are mistaken. The Minister of Education has expressed himself in the plainest and most positive language on this point. In his address as retiring President of the Canterbury Educational Institute, he says : " Let him say this: the primary school system offered no field for further retrenchment. He knew that he was speaking in a dual capacity and must weigh his words, but he had weighed these words well before he uttered them. He was entirely opposed to the notion of economising by cutting down the £3 15s capitation grant or by raising the school age. (Applause.) And he was just as entirely opposed to any proposal for cutting off any of the six standards or for charging fees in any of the higher standards." (Applause.) And yet there are people who taunt Mr. W. P. Beeves with being young. Well, he is not innocent, at any rate, tor a more palpable bid for the political support of the teachers could not be made. Will that satisfy the teachers, that a man may want to make improvements in the method, without attacking 'the' whole system of free, secular, and compulsory education ? We nave left ourselves but little space to.comment on tine forcible, but rather limited, vocabulary of abuse poured out upon the article of the 7th February. Forcible, because the language habitually employed by the persons who have composed or passed these resolutions is habitually forcible and limited, because their knowledge of English is very limited indeed. The criticisms, such as they are, on the article, refute each other. If the article is so feeble, so illogical, so contemptible as they want to make out, why make such a terrific uproar about it ? Why not treat it with silent contempt ? The Nelson Board's pronouncement is delicious. We have given it in our local column, but it is worthy of embalming in the leading columns. The Nelson people say, " that whatever truth it [the Herald article] contained was self-evident and universally admitted, while whatever went beyond that was, if not absurdly false, at least grossly exaggerated." Or, in plainer English, what was true was not false, and whatever was false was not true. It was not necessary for the Nelson Board to tell us that. The question we want answered is one to which we can get no reply : What part of the article is false? We are further told that " clap-trap is the radical blemish that pervades the entire article. But is clap-trap self-evident and universally admitted truth ? It is a universally admitted truth that Nelson is called Sleepy Hollow ; but is it clap-trap to say so? Now, how can clap-trap pervade the entire article if some parts of it are " self-evident and universally-admitted truth It is a curious .fact that the writer of the article drew some of his severest accusations against the workings of the present syllabus and standards from the official reports of the Nelson Inspector of State Schools.