THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF SECULAR EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2057, 27 July 1893, Page 11

THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF SECULAR EDUCATION.

1 At the annual meeting of the Otago Educational Institute on Friday evening, the President (Mr R. G. Whetter) read a paper on. " Some Remarks on Some Objections against the Moral Influence of Seoular Education." He said almost every system of education which had been unfortunate enough to be more or less national and seoular had hitherto afforded, and does still afford, a favourite target for divers sorts of people with divers sorts of opinions and with divers sorts of prejudices. Neither the educational system of New Zealand nor that of England had escaped, each having to bear the full brunt of this general cannonade. Shells from all kinds of hostile camps had burst upon both of them. Their moral side, their practical_Bide, their religious side had all been under a hot fire. How had the system of New Zealand fared under some of these attacks. In the Otago Daily Times of August 13, 1892, a member of the Upper House was reported to have - maintained, during a debate in that chamber on educational matters, "that the moral tone of the youth of the . colony - was not so good as it was years ago, and that indeed it was shown by statistics that since . the Education Act came into force instead of crime decreasing it was increasing." Here, apparently, was a definite issue, but only apparently, for supposing statistics did prove— which they did not— that there .bad been an increase of criminality since 1878 . (the .time when the Education Aot came into force), was it a necessary influence that secular education was the demoralising factor, or. was it a factor at all? There was one satisfactory feature in the honourable gentleman's critioism. It conceded not only ttjat jibe moral condition of human beings was

regulated by constant laws, bat also that these laws might be discovered by the same methods whereby we investigated physical laws. Now, if in addition to these two concessions it be recognised that only those actions which lead to bodily and mental degradation are immoral and criminal, then he was sure that our educational system need not fear an appeal to statistics. Let them see if this gentleman's sweeping condemnation of the moral tone of the youth of this colony, could stand an investigation. National peculiarities tended to make international statistics largely valueless, but there was one crime which lent itself more readily than' any other to the exigencies of international comparison, and that was murder. The evil resulting from this crime was so apparent, was so serious, that the moral sentiments of almost every civilised nation was dead against it. Taking murder then as a standard, and taking the latest statistics available, how did New Zealand compare with England and with any one of the neighbouring colonies — Tasmania for instance ? In 1891 there were over 5 persons out of every 100,000 of the population of England and Wales convicted of that offence, 6 out of the same number in Tasmania, but only 4 out of the same number in New Zealand. And this comparatively low murder rate in New Zealand was not confined solely to the year 1891. In fact, with scarcely an exception, all the statistics that he could lay his hands on relating to the matter under discussion went to prove that our colony was morally better in every respect than the mother country. Take for example the statistics in regard to illegitimacy, and these would give some indication of the relative purity of home life here. The proportion of illegitimate births in 1890 to the total birth rate was— ln England and Wales, 46 per 100 : in New South Wales, 5-2 per 100 ; in New Zealand, only 3"2 per 100. Now look at the following figures :— ln 1890 in Germany 1-102 per 1000 were convicted of indictable offences ; in Scotland, 046 per 1000 ; in England and Wales, 0*32; and in New Zealand, 0 30. Here he was dealing with the total volume of serious crimes in each of these countries, and here too our colony did not suffer by the comparison. Moreover, it must nob be forgotten that our population was still very mixed. If he were to give the percentage of these crimes committed by native-bom New Zealanders educated under our secular system they would find that was very small indeed. But it had been urged by some who were opposed to our educational system that though the amount of criminality here was less than it was at Home, yet its intensity was as great, or perhaps greater. The best way to answer that objection was to give a comparative statement of the indictable offences committed against the person, seeing that the3o offences included the worst class of crimes. The result of this comparison was very much in favour of New Zealand, for in the year 1890 there were over 001 per cent, of the population of England convicted of such crimes, whilst ia New Zealand there were only 0-003— about a third of what it was in the former country. Then, by comparison, with the neighbouring colonies, our colony showed up well. In 1889 in New South Wales 044 per cent, of tha people were convicted of offences against the person, in Queensland 035 per cent., in Tasmania 018 per cent., in Victoria 0-16 per cent., in New Zealand 0 12 per cent., and in South Australia 010 per cent. ; New South Wales thus contributing the largest number of convictions, and New Zealand, with the .exception ~of South Australia, the least. Nor was it in these offences alone that our colony showed to advantage. All the intercolonial statistics that he had consulted told as a rule a similarly favourable tale. Too much weight, however, should not be attributed to our educational system in bringing about these gratifying results. Climate, food, sex 'distribution of the people— these and many other things all exerted an appreciable influence on national morality. In fact, whatever tended to bring about a difference of nerre tissue in human beings, tended also to produce a difference both in moral sentiment and in criminal propensity. So long, for instance, as a Frenchman and Englishman differed physically, so long would they differ morally. But though perhaps it was not logical to infer that the exceptionally high moral condition of this colony was largely due to our educational system, yet surely it was still less, logical to argue, as some did, that we had suffered morally by that system. A somewhat anomaloub position had lately heen taken up by some who were unable to understand how the mere training and strengthening of a brain could exert any salutary influence on conduct. They contended that comparison should be made, not with England' of to-day, bub with England of 2() years ago, because according to them &3 England had been burdened since 1871 with a system of education largely secular, the volume of. crime had (also,- according to them) consequently insreased since that date. It puzzled him how these people explained away the fact that every second of our lives lessons in morality were being taught us in the school of Nature— a school, too, whosg discipline was certainly not godless, for the Creator Himself was the founder thereof. The truth was these denominationalists did not know what morality essentially was. Morality, it had been said, was the art, or science, of consequences — actions being good or bad according to the goodness or badness.of their results. If they would make a child moral they must give his brain, his nerves, and his muscles a keen memoryfor pain and pleasure, for by these two things would his moral course be directed. If, therefore, these people wonld pnly recognise that when a child was being trained to be always on the look-out for consequences, he was learning the essence of morality, they would not ba so prone to prophesy that in England, or any other country, crime was on the increase. Unfortunately, too, for their arguments English statistics pointed in the opposite direction. He proceeded to quote statistics, and said that these clearly showed that with the increased diffusion of education there had undoubtedly been a concomitant decrease in the volume of wime in England. The statistics indicated both that the moral condition of England had been slowly but surely improving, and aho that education had more than probably had a measurable influence in bringing about this advancement. National education had done this in England, and it was having a like beneficial effect in New Zealand, for since 1878, when the present Education Act came into force, crime had been gradually waning. He went on to quote statistics showing that the charges in the inferior courts of the colony had been gradually decreasing since the year when our present system of education came into operation. He was- inclined to think that this decrease was due to the moral influence of our system of education making itself felt for good. Mr Whetter proceeded to quote largely Irom New Zealand statistics with a view of showing that crime had decreased since the present system of education was "initiated. In conclusion he pointed out that in writing, this paper he bad no intention of arguing for or against the introduction of the Bible into the schools of the colony. He wrote it simply because he had faith in 1 the moral influence of our secular system \oi education. And wny ? Because he believed that m order to be moral a mau mvwti cultivate a keen

memory for consequences ; because ho thought that a man's moral character was largely dependent on the physical condition of his thinking machinery— the brain,— seeing that Nature, in the guise of experience, was every moment of' our lives carving on the plastio nerve matter tendencies that would either help us or hinder us in morality ; because he -felt keenly that though Nature might speak and we did not hear her, yet if her voice once entered our souls her words would never be forgotten. They would be over with us, either for good or for ill ; for so ineffaceable was that brain record, that until the brain itself decayed every one of us carried engraved on the very tiseues of his body everything he had thought, everything he had willed, and everything he had felt. If this be so, then to make a child moral they must so arrange his surroundings, and so direot his sense organs, that every message from outside of him would leave conserving tendencies in his mind and body. And secular education, he felt satisfied, tended to do that.— (Applause.) Mr Davidson, in moving a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Whetter, said that the institute owed him a debt of gratitude. He had proved himself to ba what every teacher ought to ba— a guardian of our national system of education. —(Hear, hear.) He thought the figures quoted by Mr Whetter were exceedingly valuable, and considering that we were approaching a general election, when a fight for the destruction of 'bar national system, and the introduction of denominationalism would probably take place many of them might find the figures of very great advantage at that time. The motion was carried by acclamation.