EDUCATION IN CANADA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1031, 2 September 1871, Page 8

EDUCATION IN CANADA.

Apropos of the demand made by the Roman Catholics in this province for separate educational grants, a correspondent sends ua the following extract from an article on Canada which appeared in Good Words in 1802, with respect to the educational system in force in that colony :—: —

The system planned by Dr Ryerson, the founder and chief superintendent of education — and which has been adopted by the Legislature— is substantially that of the United States, in which the educational activity of the various religious bodies is entirely ignored. As a necessary consequence the teaching is exclusively secular. In a new country the system is the one most generally acceptable, as the various churches have to struggle for their existence, and are glad that the State should take upon itself the burden of education. When, however, society is better organised, and the churches gain an easier position, educational life is inevitably awakened ; and whether with or without the aid of the State, they will engage in the work of educating the people. Dr Ryerson saw this tendency, and at an early period was constrained to give separate grants to the Roman Catholics. This anomaly could not long be continued, and last winter a bill was introduced to give separate aid to all Protestant denominations that chose to engage in the w r ork of national instruction. Canada thus practically abandons the system of the United States, and adopts that of England, in which aid is given to all denominations if they impart a due amount of secular knowledge. Evidence is afforded, even in the United States, that the Common School System is only possible, and that the State must yield to the educational activity of the people, acting through their various churches. Already almost every denomination has begun to erect schools for itself, thoiigh as yet no aid is derived from the State. The first demand for separate aid is always made by the Roman Catholics, and the next step of aiding other denominations is inevitable. We find it to be the opinion of a high educational official in the State of New York, that in less than ten years the Common School System would begin to disintegrate from the necessity of giving separate grants to the Roman Catholics. He clearly sees that the system of England was the only one that could satisfy the educational activities of a highly developed state of society, and that the mechanical uniformity of the common school was suited only to the early periods of a new country." Whatever may be the inferences drawn by our correspondent from this extract, admitting the facts as

stated, it is abundantly clear that the admission of the claims of Roman Catholics to State aid for educational purposes means the equal admission of all similar claims from other religious bodies, and the Church of England clergy, for instance, would not be slow in pressing their claims. The question is, then, even if we agree with the writer of the above remarks, whether we are prepared to admit this process of " disintegration," or whether we are not at present passing through those "early periods of a new country " to which the Common School System is declared to be best suited. Is it not probable, in fact, that any present attempt at denominationalism will only end in the destruction of our present efficient school system without establishing satisfactorily any other 1 If this be so, however much, we may respect the claims of any particular religious body, they cannot be permitted to override general considerations of the common weal.