EDUCATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2092, 19 October 1868, Page 3

EDUCATION.

To the Editor of the Otago Daily Times. Sm—lt mnat be painfully apparent to every one at all acquainted with Dunedin and its people, and also with the condition of the masses of population in our large cities at home, that wo must some day reap a terrific harvest of ignorance, and consequently of crime, from our present educational system. A very considera'le portion of our population are altogether debarred from giving their children even the rudiments of an English education, for the best of all posairJe reasons, viz., they cannot afford to pay school fees. Our rulers make a mistake when they take it for granted that we have no poor. It is a fact beyond doubt that we have a good number of heads of families who can scarcely provide the necessaries of life for themselves and children, much less send them to school. Now, Sir, are these children to be allowed to go down to the depths of it^norance and of crime, so often to be found in large cities 1 And are we to have enacted in our midst Buch scenes of vice and degradation as ate daily to be met with in the back streets and lanes of London, Liverpool, and Glasgow ? Would it not be well for us to spend the money spent annually in what may be called the luxuries of education (and which ought to be paid for by those who wish to enjoy them) in instructing and elevatingthe children of tho poor? ormight not we adopt tho system of making all our schools free, and compelling parents to send their'children, thus giving all and sundry an education to ena le them to take an honourable place in society ?— lam, &c, A. 8.C.. Dunedin, 13th Oct., 1868.