ROUND THE CORNERS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 852, 29 June 1888, Page 17

ROUND THE CORNERS.

Elsewhere is published a letter from the Chairman of tha Mount Cook School Committee, dealing with two of the Corners in last week’s Mail. The Chairman designates both as “ cock and bull ’ stories. liom uh-3 bottom of my heart, I would they were. Right cheorfully would I undergo any quantity of blame and opprobrium for careless and inaccurate writing. M-Y feelings, in connection with such a stupendous scandal as seems to me is in course of development, would be of no consequence whatever, compared with the intense satisfaction that the public must feel in knowing the State schools were all that can be desired. But lam afraid it is very far otherwise ; evidence is multiplying, and I would earnestly recommend the Chairman of the Mount Cook School Com- v mittee to sedulously investigate the condition of our State school system with a view to remedying defects. , Better do thau than rush into print and stir muddy water with a thick deposit at the bottom besides.

7 he Wellington Education Board is putting itself forward as the champion of. tha.Stata school system of New Zealand. Iu is goiug to demand evidence of a newspaper as to certain allegations against that system. The Wellington Education Board had far .better mind its own business by looking closely into the condition of the various schools in its own district with the object of the suppression of those things about which there is wide and increasing complaint. As for evidence, there will be enough forthcoming when the State demands it.

Cobb & Co.—l mean the C. & C. of the “‘Bus’’line in Wellington—are t to be commended for their enterprise in having initiated a cheap system of street passenger traffic. Their “ ’busses ” are the talk of the town, and mow it seems are to undertake quite new •and surprising duties—pleasurable duties, too, I presume. Moreover, it will inaugurate an .entirely new era in the existence and rounds of •“’busses’.’ that is, I take it, the most startling innovation of these startling latter days. So far as 1 can make it .out, the “’busses” are prepared, to undergo saltatory discipline, and are, indeed, prepared to go the entire animal in the interest of the owners. "Readers of an evening paper will doubtless have noticed an advertisement appertaining to a ball to be held av't the Drillshed, which stated that dancing would commence at 8 o’clock sharp, and “ that Cobb & Co.’s ’busses would attend.” It is to be presumed they were, admitted free with the ladies, for the novelty of their appearance would more than compensate for the space they might occupy. I congratulate the proprietary upon the accomplishments of their vehicles. Wonder if the horses went in with them?

A misprint last week demands correction. “The poisoned shirt of Nemesis ” should have read “ The poisoned shirt of Nessus.” Th 0 similarity of the name's led to the oversight. It was fit illustration of the subject I had then under comment, for the shirt or tunic may aptly find comparison with the entertainment of unhallowed desires which, distempering the spiritual nature, induces moral decay. The influence for evil is ever about, and directly or indirectly ready to present under attractive guise the poisoned shirt. How many that have worn it can vouch for the fatal results 1

Continuing the subject of the danger to bo apprehended from the promiscuous intercourse of children of both sexes in schools, I have within the week received a word or two from a country place, through an unimpeachable medium, of the mischief that the mixed school Bystem wrought there. Tn this case it was very widespread, indeed, affecting many of the girls of the school. And the witness, clenching his hands, vowed that no girl of his should go to a State school. The details I withhold, of course.

It is argued that mixed schools are quite successful in other countries. The United States and Scotland are cited as favorable instances. We must judge by results, of course. Well, can it be said that the social system of the U.S.A. is a success. Where are marriage ties held so cheaply as there ? The description of the condition of affairs in some of the States is hideously grotesque, and is suggestive of deep-seated degradation. How was this morally ulcerous condition brought about—where the cause —may not mixed schools have bad something to do with it? Then as for Scotland. Let me admit that the mixed schools there were a comparative success, but under what conditions ? Conditions certainly at entire variance with conditions here. There the mixed schools were conducted under the very shadow of the Kirk and within the in. fluence of the sternest, most uncompromising theology the world ever heard of. The minister of the parish did not mince matters with his people, and they bowed their necks to the yoke, and.the stern discipline, combined with the “hangman’s whip,” served to keep them in fairly good order, albeit the mixed system was not an entire success there, and would have been better unmixed. And the people besides, were all of one clan their relationship and acquaintance were of generations.

Said a friend to me in the street, “You know I have always objected to the free-handed Bystem of education in this Colony. Educate the people certainly up to a certain limit and after that let them help themselves. But lam now only just beginning to realise what may be the full effect of the system with its mixed schools.” And there are many more than he who are only just beginning to realise the danger of the situation. It has come upon us like a revelation, and prompts the query, are such things possible ? And evidence is accumulating. There promises to be a mountain of it soon, Hore is a scrap suggestive enough unhappily. What about a certain request to have removed from a State school playground a certain large cask, open at the one end, that was being put to improper purposes by the scholars.

The mixed school system of the Colony is doubly perilous through the mixed society that fills the schools. Reputable children and disreputable children are brought cheek by jowl. And we know to our sorrow how much more readily the leaven of evil works than the leaven of good. ’Tis so with our physical nature. ’Ti3 disease that is contagious, not health. Unless the healthy person has the magnetic power to resist, he or she is in deadly peril of falling a prey to the contagion. If a dozen perfectly healthy persons were brought into contact with a dozen diseased persons, and by the inherent power of health made them sound, it would be termed miraculous ; but if the twelve healthy persons fell victims to the disease of the twelve unhealthy ones, it would be termed quite in accordance with natural laws, and the twelve victims would in all likelihood be denounced as twelve fools for having exposed themselves to the danger. In fact the customary verdict, “ Sarved ’em right,” would be returned unanimously. And the same rule applies to the morally healthy and unhealthy, especially children, the healthiest of which are singularly susceptible to moral distemper. Hence the trouble of bringing up children, the great care, the unflagging precautions that are demanded to pull them through safely to past the distance post of puberty.

Children so readily contaminate each other. It’s all nonsense to maintain the equality of children any more than the equality of adults. Itstands to reason that carefully nurtured child-

ren born of respectable parents are superior to the poor little wretches who matriculate in the streets and slums of a town. And it is doing the former the grossest injustice, and playing a devil'rf game of promoting a dead level of mediocrity, and worse, to compel them to associate, on equal terms with the latter.. I have heard it argued that it is right and proper because of the good influence of good children upon the evil. But this is not born out by practice, as I have demonstrated farther back. And then, besides, parents do not send their children to school to act as moral scavengers, but to become better themselves, and to be improved upon. And they are not likely to be that In a mixed school of the present day.

And the dangers which I am illustrating, albeit darkly, are not confined to mixed schools, but are common to any school where children of either sex are indiscriminately mixed. Given congenial elements and a heap of mischief is generated in a herd of girls or a herd of boys taken from the top, bottom, and middle of society. And the chances are ten to one in favor of the bottom ones exercising the greatest influence. A very little of that sort of leaven affects a great big lump. Parents who can afford it should send the girls, at any rate, as being the more susceptable, to private schools, and parents who cannot afford to do so must be ever on the watch, and tireless in fortifying their darlings from the approach of evil. Parental supervision is indispensable. Aye, even when their children attend private and unmixed- schools. Eor there is gangrene in high places as well as low. “Our girls,” .yes, indeed, our girls, that should be the darlings of the nation to bo girdled about in security. Eor what greater calamity can befal a nation than harm to its women. Destroy the women and the nation is wiped out ! cantaminate the women and the infection will last through generations. And the danger is pre-eminent here, where there is such a fearful social mixture to deal with. The indiscriminate immigration of ’73, ’74, ’75, ’76, and ’77 is asserting itself now with a vengeance. The two or three hundred thousand people who were shovelled into the country then are malting themselves felt. Clearly ’bis the duty of the State to make the best of them, and for them tlie State school system—bar the mixtureg—is splendid. But there are heaps of children of the better class who have been demoralised by it.

Society wants mending badly. It seems to me to be in a chronic state of patching. MeDding in this place, mending in that. And ’tis because matrimony, and its duties, are held so lightly. Every day almost brings instances of this. Hark to the utterances of the petitioner in a divorce case the other day. He was taxed with cruelty and denied it; his wife and he certainly had quarrels, but they lived much as other married people lived ! Pressed by the cross-examining counsel he admitted having on one occasion “ put his wife under the water tap and held her there for a minute or two !'* Under a water tap ! a mere marital pleasantry, I suppose ! particularly cheerful for the woman 1 “ Like other married ” people, “God’s my heart” is it a marriage custom to drag the weaker half to’ a water tap ? ’Tis revelations of this kind that let in light on foul places ; but how to cleanse them? How heal the dreadful differences that so rack society, I know an earnest Christian man, a minister of his church, who is tormented by the uncertainties of the future and the dreadful certainties of the present. “We must,” he said, “try and win men to the, ministry who will take vows of celibacy for a certain number of years, and then go and live among the people. Live in a single room, live their lives and yet teach, or try to teach, them how to live the higher life.” Something of the kind is being done in London in the present day, but I doubt much of it is practic. able in these parts. Where are the disciples of the movement to come from in the first place? Devoted to celibacy, devoted to poverty, to suffering, to the relinquishment of all that a highly cultured nature holds precious, save the one thing, the reclamation of others. Ah, me, what a sacrifice ! Who is there in these material self-seeking days to offer it ? But our friends the Salvationists are doing good work all the time. They are our strongest hope in the very serious juncture that is before us.

More bankruptcy anomalies. A party ‘•bankrupts ” properly and gets nicely through the Court, and one of his first moves afterwards is to add to his business premises to the tune of five or six hundred pounds sterling and merrily push his way in trade. Another party also shuffles off his commercial obligations, and just about the time he is paying his first and final div. of a “ colonial Robert his wife takes to entertaining and does the social heavy business in her particular line of life. Wonder how long the honest man will tolerate the audacity of the rogue ?

If it'is true, as report insists upon, that a man who once lorded it, in his way, in New Zealand, with a high hand, has been reduced to selling mi-cellaneous articles at London street corners for a living, retribution for once, has indeed, struck home.i And yet, one can scarcely help entertaining a modicum of pity for the poor wretch. v Asmodkus.