PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4636, 15 April 1902, Page 5

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

"FEED MY LAMBS.” “Feed My lambs” was the text upon which Mr A. C. Hoggins, M.A.. Inspector of Schools, Canterbury, based asomewhat unorthodox sermon at bt. Fetor's Church on Sunday. He saidJ hla ‘, cation, properly so-called, had always bten tLe up-builder of nations. In support of his contention that any nation could be built up by education, he quoted the example of-the Homans and the Greeks in their palmiest days. Mr Hoggins also referred to Holland 500 years ago-the smallest, yet the greatest European Bower—which ruled the seas in the same way that England does now. That supremacy, he claimed, was due to the great educational work done by the Brothers of the Common Life. Education,” said the preacher, is the panacea of every social evil without exception.” He supposed his hearers would reply to that, Well, we pay a great deal of attention to education in New Zealand —at least we talk about it a very great deal—yet crime has been increasing, and not only increasing, but showing a startling increase. We have now 20 or 30 per cent, more crime per head than any of the older countries; and not only that, but crime of a very horrible description. How can you account for that?” The answer could be put in one sentence: “The reason is that in this colony we have confused the two words, ‘instruction’ and ‘education. The speaker quoted a number of authorities who had defined... education. Locke, for instance, had said “education is virtue, wisdom, gopd morals, and last, if not least, knowledge.” Buskin had laid down this definition: "Education is not teaching a child *what it did not know before; it is teaching him to behave as he did not behave before. we teach our children arithmetic and' reading that they may turn their figures to roguery and their literature, to lust. True education is to give a child kingly continence of body; to make him love good and serve his fellow man.” The kind of education which wo had given in New Zealand was what was known as the “Gradgrind" system. He preferred to call it the “potato sack” system, as if a child were there to be filled as full as he could with facts. But true education consisted of drawing out, not putting in, —drawing -out all those qualities that make a man; or, as Professor Huxley had said, to “make a man the master and not the slave of himself.’* The definition given by the Department of Public Instruction of the Kingdom of Prussia was that true education was the harmonious development of all the child’s faculties—e.g., the will and the intellect— to right action. Knowledge so directed would, in the opinion of the preacher, enable us to wipe out crime in three or four generations. Locke in his "Thoughts on Education" had very finely described himself in his last days as standing on Pisgah’s height looking on the Promised Land and seeing the regeneration of the world by true educational mdlhods. Two hundred years had passed since that time, yet nothing had been done, but Germany for nearly a hundred years had been adopting new ideas; and the greatness of America was probably entirely duo to the educational revolution which had taken place there during the last fifteen yenrs. The same revolution was taking place in England now. Cecil Ehodes had recognised these three nations as the exponents of the new idea of education and had given them a legacy to assist in its promotion. In speaking of true educate n he did not simply mean Bible-raading in schools, because he realised that under present conditions it might do more sarm than good. Dr Murray, of the New York Training College, had said, "You can po more separate religious and secular education than von can sm vc-ita the srul and body.” That was his view also. Therefore the religious qusdior. wa- merging itself into the far greater question, -J- „„ 4-™ -n.l.neV.n'. nr