"A MILLION WASTED."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9714, 9 January 1895, Page 6

"A MILLION WASTED."

TO THE EDITOB. Kindly allow me to traverse Mr. Justice O'Brien's statement, as recorded in a recent issue of your paper, that the money left by Erasmus Smith has been used for converting the tenantry. Having received my primary education at an Erasmus Smith School, and since then having visited several of this founder's schools, I am, I think, in a better position to speak of the high-class education imparted to children attending them than a stranger, even though a judge. Every half year the schools were rigidly inspected, and the grant stopped if sufficient progress was not shown, while as to tho alleged attempts at proselytising, nothing could be further from the truth. 1 was brought up a strict Covenanter. Both Popery and .Prelacy were equally an abomination to us (didn't my great grand uncle, David Ralston, carry the Covenanting standard at the battle of Both well Bridge against Episcopalian pretensions), and it was most unlikely that I was going to drop down to them, and although a Church of England clergyman visited tho schools weekly for the purpose of examing the children in Bible knowledge, and hearing them repeat their catechism, all Dissenters were allowed out to play when the latter exercise was being gone on with. Therefore, in making the statements which you print, Judge O'Brien is completely "out of it."— am, etc., Rahotu. W. R. Wright.