NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL READER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10599, 20 February 1896, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL READER.

The following is a free criticism of the Above book, addressed by Mr Alfred Saunders, M.H.R., to the chairman of the North Canterbury Board of Education, of which She writer is a member :—

Dear Sir, —A public engagement whioh I would not be justified in setting aside demands my presence iv Dnnedin next Wednesday. I must therefore ask you to excuse my absence from the board on that day. ; " ■ I have consented fobs abrent with extreme reluctance, because I am strongly impressed with the importance of one of the questions that have been set down for consideration oa that day. It' would indeed be difficult to exaggerate the weighty consequences tbat would follow the adoption of a recognised " New Zealand Reader" for general use in the Sbat-e schools of this colony. Not only must the intelligence, the taste, and the moral sense of the future New Zealanders be more or less influenced by such a selection, but the reputation -bat New Zealand has bo far obtained as the leader in a model system of high-toned secular education would at once be reversed if n national sanction were given to a book to be called a "New Zealand Reader" which might belie the high aims and professions which have hithfrto^been so carefully and so successfully carried out. ••'-..

The very fact that, under a system of perfect religious liberty and equality, we are prohibited from introducing any direct religious teaching in our State schools makes it of the utmoat importance thab no book should be admitted in which the highest moral tone and taste, such as all denominations are agreed on, has not beon most carefully preserved. No one can pretend that this has been done in these selections of Mr Reeves. No one could mistake his favourite authors for hightoned or unselfish patriots. F. E. Maning, Alfred Domett, and Vincent Pyke occupy a good part of the book. On page 93, Mr Maning describes himself as soliloquising :— - : -

I wonder how many I can kill before they bag me I I will kill, kill, kill I but—l must have some supper.

He goes on to say—

I washed my bands six or seven times, scrubbing away and muttering, with an intonation tbat would have been a fortune to a tragic actor, —

" Out, damued spot I " * " " 1 felt a curious sensation at th.c...mc, like what I fancied a man must feel who had just sold himself, body and bones, to the devil.

At pages 199, ZOO, we read :—

As we pitlop along I see a man and horse go down on the steep side of a gully. They roll over together, and together flounder to the bottom. Tbe unlucky rider screams with pain, for his legs aud ribs are broken. He calls to us to help him. We hesitate a moment: but the gold fever is ou ns, and we hurry on. . . I hear Dandy Jack and O'Gaygun shout in warning, but the miner has no time to get out of their way. Riding abreast they charge down upon him, utterly regardless «i the consequences. Over-go horse and mau beneath the shock of their lushing steeds, and a moment later my nag leaps over the fallen, and follows at their heels.

Such is the morality of the selected prose. The selected poetry is, if possible, even Worse. Wara, murders, and a woman ridding herself of a rejected lover by pushing him into a pool of boiling mud. Not one specimen of first-class English composition in prose or poetry. Not one high-toned moral sentiment in the book. Not a line from Burns, Stout, Dr3 Stuart" or Featherston, Macaulay, Huxley, Gladstone, Charming, Cobden, or Aohley, Not a word about the bonest struggles of our pioneer settlers ; about the wise and humane treatment of our domestic animals; about the charming and completely authenticated history of the brilliant heroism of Julia and her relations in their daring rescue of.'the Delaware's crew, which has given her the well-deserved title of "The Grace Darling of New Zealand," whilst the disgusting and utterly'unsupported libel upon the Maoris aboub the massacre of the crew of an unknown ship, told by an unknown John Rutherford to an unknown newspaper hack, is given as if it were a real incident in New Zealand history, and occupies no less than 20 pages of this veracious "New Zealand Reader: Printed by authority," and to which you are now aßked to add your authority.

The bad taste and incomprehensible assurance displayed by Mr Beeves in getting his thoughtless selections printed '.'by authority" at tbe Government printing office, fixing the price, and sending tbem, unaltered and unalterable, to the school boards and committees of New Zealand as if they were above aud beyond all criticism, should, ol itself, be more than sufficient to secure their immediate rejection. I trnst nothing will be done to give such a miserable production and such unwarrantable assurance the slightest sanction from the Board of Education.

Any " New Zealand Reader," even if selected by a Solon, should not be adopted until it had been' approved by a well-appointed selection committee, which should be chosen from the best-informed and most trustworthy men and women in New Zealand, A woinari'B quicker sense of anything that violates the purest moral sensibility, and her more just estimate of all that affects the juvenile mind, shonld, in such a selection, on no account be dispensed with.

TO DARKEN GREY HAIR.

Lockyer's Sulphur Hair Restorer, quickest safest, best; restores the natural colour. Lockyer's the real English Hair Restorer. Large bottles lo fid everywhere.— [Advt.]...

— Sweden baa a deaf and dumb corps of the Salvation Amur. ,