SECULAR EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5548, 9 January 1879, Page 3

SECULAR EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

(From the Auckland Evening Star.)

Secular education has found influential approval from a quarter whence it was least expected. Most people are tolerably familiar with the arguments that have been used against it. Chief amongst these is the oft reiterated assertion that it is a godless system ; and that being such, it is undeserving the countenance of those who are entrusted with the cure of souls. In New South Wales a secular system of education has been in operation for many years past. When it was initiated it was condemned by the clergy of various denominations in no measured terms ; but time, which “ is the nurse and breeder of all good,” has worked a great change in the public mind. At the recent meeting of the Church of England Synod of New South Wales, a debate took place on the subject of religious education, and the conviction generally expressed was that, to quote the Sydney Morning Herald, “ the present Schools Act is a reasonable one, and any change that might be effected in its provisions would be more likely to be a change for the worse than for the better.” The Dean of Sydney spoke at considerable length upon the satisfactory working of the Act, and concluded by moving a resolution, which was adopted, urging clergymen to avail themselves of the clause which provides “ that a portion of each day, not less than an hour, may be set apart for the religions instruction of children of any one religious persuasion by the clergyman of such persuasion.” During the discussion at the Synod, the clergymen who had availed themselves of the privilege of imparting religious instruction in the schools bore testimony to the fact that they found no difficulty in the way of exercising their privileges under the Act. But the most remarkable fact disclosed in the State reports on education in New South Wales is that comparatively few clergymen visit the schools, notwitastanding an intimation by the Council of Education that they, were willing to grant, not only an hour each day, but an hour and a half for separate religious teaching. The official returns showed that about 80 of the 400 public schools were visited by clergymen for the purposes named, and that out of 500 clergymen about 100 visited public schools. And more striking still is the fact that about 80 of that 100 belonged to the Church of England, the remainder being chiefly Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and Roman Catholics, the latter forming a comparatively small per centage of the whole.