TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9388, 30 March 1892, Page 3

TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—Sir Robert Stout's idea that statistics are useless for comparison comes rather late from one who has inundated us with them for years, showing that religious people were the most criminal, and Roman Catholics the worst of all. I have shown that his New Zealand tables, being constructed upon a wrong basis, prove nothing of the kind. I will now reply to his letter in this day's Times. He tries to draw me into side issues. My plea is that intellectuahsm and material prosperity do not lessen crime, that crime increases in proportion that a country or people ignore their religious restraints and secularise education. Among other proofs I instanced Prance, where crime had increased 133 per cent., and that crime was increasing faster in America than the growth of population, and faster among the native bora Americans than among the poorer and more uneducated foreign born portion in America. Further, that Ireland with' its ignorance and poverty was less criminal than prosperous and intellectual Victoria or Scotland, and I cited the leading European tind American criminal authorities in proof thereof. Sir Robert Stout meets this with the simple assertion that crime is decreasing.' Now, Havelock Ellis, who is not a Christian, says in "The Criminal" (p. 295): "The level of criminality, it is well known, is rising throughout the civilised world." And I defy anyone to read Mr Morrison's impartial book, "Crime and its Causes," and not come to the same conclusion, and when this is corroborated by the specialists quoted in my letter on Saturday the evidence is overwhelming. Now, whom are we to believe—these authorities or Sir Robert Stout? He should show they are wrong or that I misrepresented them. And why did he overlook the fact that " Ireland," where Roman Catholicism has hold of the people, is "the least criminal land in Europe?" The words within quotation marks are Havelock Ellis', as quoted by Sir Robert Stout, and not mine, and can be found in " The Criminal" (p. 156). And Sir Robert Stout suggests crime was more rampant in England 300, 400, or 500 years ago, when the church dominated everything, than now; which is equal to saying religion leads to crime. Now, the social and political condition of the two periods are entirely different. Secular education has only appeared within the last 15 or 20 years. What promoted our development for centuries prior to that ? Denominationalism. Indeed, religious organisations existed first, and were the model for all our later political and social institutions. Without the humanising influences of Christianity, we would have never emerged from barbarism. Now for Sir Robert Stout's charge that I misquoted Ellis. Regard for your space made me condense Ellis. I did not alter the sense But I prefer Sir Robert Stout's extract This is fair. What does it teach ? 1. "It was at one time thought that the great panacea for the prevention of crime was education." 2. " The mere intellectual rudiments of education have very little influence indeed in preventing crime." 3. "The only education that can avail to prevent crime in any substantial degree must be education in the true sense, an educationthat is as much physical and moral as intellectual." Exactly my argument. Can you, Sir, get anything else out of the extract? Mr Ellis rightly says how physical or industrial and intellectual education can be got, but says nothing about moral education beyond mentioning the word "moral," and leaving it there! Likewise Sir Robert Stout talks about the " growth of the social conscience," but fails to show how this is to be brought about. This is because moral teaching involves religious instruction. The late Matthew Arnold, who was not a Christian, sees this. In February 1888, in a preface to his report on the schools of Germany, Switzerland, and France, he summarises his views on popular education thus :—" I wish to indicate three points to which those for whose use the report is now designed will do well to direct their minds. The first point is the need that those who use the popular school should arrive at clear and just notions of what they want their own school to be, and should look to get it made this. At present their school is not this, but is rather what the political and governing classes, establishing a school for the benefit of the working classes, think that such a school ought to be. '' The second point is that our existing popular school is far too little formative and humanising, and that much in it which its administrators point to as valuable results is in truth mere machinery. "The third and last point is, that religious instruction, which politicians making or administering the popular school seek to exclude as embarrassing, if not futile, is a formative influence, an element of culture of the very highest value, and more indispensable in the popular school than in any other." These are weighty words from an unprejudiced quarter, and equally apply to our schools. Matthew Arnold discovered that "humanising formative influences" could not be secured without "religious instruction." Of course the basis of this instruction is the Bible. If, however, secularism displaces it in the schools it will displace it in the nation. — I am, &c, Joseph Braithwaite. Dunedin, March 28.

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