Straight from the Shoulder.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 858, 10 August 1888, Page 27

Straight from the Shoulder.

(From the Ifcio Zealand, Times, Augusts.) A MEETING of the Wellington Education Board is called for to-day to consider the request of the teachers that the Board should apply for a Commission to inquire into the working of the State system of education, with special reference to the moral condition of the schools. The demand had previously been made by us, and has been reiterated more than once in our columns. It is the only reasonable way of dealing with the question at issue. The teachers are taking a very proper course in asking for such a Commission of Investigation —albeit, no charge against themselves was either made or implied in our remarks —and the Education Board ought unhesitatingly to accede to their request. The proceedings of the Board hitherto have been unavoidably futile, because wholly illogical. The whole gist of our remarks was that the evil went on necessarily witliout the teachers' Tcnoioledge and throughout the whole Colony. The Board’s way of meeting this was to ask the teachers if they Jcnew of any immorality, which we had distinctly asserted that they did not and could not! Consequently, as we pointed out at the timej the negative answer of the teachers entirely supported our position, which was that if the allegations made to us were true, the blame must lie with the system and not with the teachers. Nothing could be clearer or more explicit than what we said on this point. Indeed, our attitude from the first has been so plain and consistent that only singular obtuseness or wilful malevolence could misrepresent it. We have made charges at all, even against the schools or system, much less against persons. We have simply demanded a competent investigation of charges idhich other peojple had made to us. Nor have our observations been directed specially to the schools in the Wellington District. Those were undoubtedly included in our reference to the whole Colony, but it is only thus they can come within the scope of what we said. It is surely, therefore, the height of unwisdom for their friends to insist upon “ putting the cap on ” their heads, and to assert that we must have meant them exclusively. It is equally indiscreet for the thick-and-thin advocates of the present State system to introduce quite gratuitously the denominational question, and to take it for granted that the evils mentioned must, if they really exist, be the outcome of the secular system. Our position was, we repeat, simply that we called for an inquiry into the statements which other persons had made to us. We did not, and do not pretend to predict what the outcome of such an’ inquiry would be. The one opinion which we did express was that the mixed-school system was a bad one, and that would apply equally to denominational schools.

Our remarks have been stigmatised as “ hysterical.” Have, those who use this adjective ever really read what we said? We will venture to say that any unprejudiced reader perusing our studiously calm and temperate utterances and comparing these with the wild and blood-curdling yells of our critics, will be inclined Lo say that the “ hysterics ” are all on the other side! We have been most careful throughout to avoid all exaggeration, over-statement, and sensationalism. We have simply said in effect this : —That complaints have been made to us which appear to indicate the existence of an unsatisfactory state of morals among some of the children attending the State schools of the Colony ; that the evil is manifestly one of which the teachers cannot be cognisant, and with which they cannot grapple ; therefore, that the whole system should be inquired into by a tribunal privileged to take evidence and indemnify witnesses, with a view to the institution of needful reforms. We do nob say that the Wellington District Schools are better or worse than those of the Colony at large. We hope they may be better ; we do not believe that they are worse. But the entire system needs investigating. It has now been in force for more than a decade—a whole school generation—and may fairly be judged bv its fruits. The obscenity and profanity so lamentably prevalent among street children in the Colony, notwithstanding their regular attendance at school, has at any rate not been checked, and foulness of language usually goes with foulness of thought and act. How far this latter is really the case in the present instance

can only be ascertained through a stringent and unsparing efdifcfiuation by a capable Commission. But the Commission must be not only a capable, but also a fair and impartial one, and its course of inquiry must also be fair and impartial, otherwise it will only make matters worse, If a Commission be appointed consisting of fanatical devotees to the existing system, who are bent only on whitewashing that system, no matter ab what cost of truth or justice, then its work will be worse than useless indeed mischievous. The selection of Commissioners will therefore need to be very carefully and judiciously made. If a Commission bo appointed, as we hope will be the case, we shall, as we have said before, recommend those persons who have complained to us to lay their statements before the Commission. But we shall not in any case allow ourselves to be forced or tricked into the position either of a prosecutor subsiantiating charges which tee have never made, or of a defendant justifying what wo have never done or dreamt of doing. Let that be thoroughly clear. We defy anyone who will read attentively and impartially all that has appeared on the subject in our columns (and in those of the New Zealand Mail also) to detect anything approaching a direct charge against the schools of the Wellington District. Our comments and statements from first to last have been general, and not particular in their bearing, notwithstanding all that malignant writers have the audacity and mendacity to assert. We do not believe that the members of the Education Board have really perused with care or attention what has appeared in the columns of the Times or the Mail, otherwise they could hardly have used the expressions attributed to them, which, when compared with the remarks upon which they professed to be based, have manifestly no connection or relevance at all. This superficial mode of reading is one of the curses of the present lightning age. An article is merely glanced at, arid its purport is taken for granted ; even the common justice of verifying alleged quotations is rarely e'xtended to newspapers. We have never swerved and shall not swerve from the position we took up at the outset regarding this exceedingly disagreeable matter, neither shall we suffer ourselves to be affected by any absurd and frantic accusations of “ foul slander ” which may be hurled at us by fanatical supporters of the present educational system. It is quite competent for journals here or elsewhere to review a State system of education. It is, in fact, part of ajournal’s duty, if it sees occasion, to administer friendly and timely exhortation. To say that because a paper is published in Wellington its utterances must need apply only to Wellington affairs —that, in fact, a journal is only to deal with local matters —would be to emasculate journalism utterly, and to confine it within grooves as narrow as is the narrow and bigoted and uncharitable judgment that has been passed on our action by jealous and unscrupulous writers in certain journals. Happily there are other papers which have taken up the subject in a different and more judicial spirit than those hysterical contemporaries, and which, having weighed the case as it stands, have pronounced a clear and reasonable verdict, not hastily jumping at erroneous conclusions and raaligning those who may deem it a duty to point out defects in the system ot which some make a fetish. Thus, then, the matter now stands : We say that certain statements which have been made to us (but not by us) appear to reflect unfavourably upon the moral purity of the State schools of the Colony, and to suggest the inference that the system generally may be defective also that mixed schools are positively objectionable ; We demand, therefore, that a competent Commission be appointed to investigate the working of the State school system of the Colony, and we repudiate altogether the merely local aspect which it has been sought to give to the question. If every school in the Wellington District were incontestably shown to be a model of purity—which would rejoice us exceedingly—our position would still remain unassailed. The Commission of inquiry to be of any value at all must be not only capable and impartial, but also general in its scope.