THEOSOPHY AND EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2317, 28 July 1898, Page 27

THEOSOPHY AND EDUCATION.

At a public meeting held in the board room of the Agricultural Hall on the 19th by tha Above society, Miae E. J. Home delivered a lecture on " Theosophy and Education." To the Tbeof opbists, said the lecturer, a child was not a new creation, but a recent arrival, all thafj was aew about it being ita various bodies. It brings with it the germs of evil and good qualities, and had parents knowledge they might starve and dwarf the latent evil and stimalate the good, so assisting greatly tho efolution of the racs and giving its members individually a better chance of overcoming evil tendencies acquired in past lives. The del : cate organisms of children are played upon nob only by the acts and spoken words of those surrounding them, but also and even more powerfully by unexproesed thought. A child, therefore, should never hear an angry word, see an ankind act, or be exposed to the play of impure thought. Every child should bs educated on all sides of its nature. At present there was a danger of sacrificing the physical and spiritual to the intellectual, and the speaker considered that intellectual development without spiritual training was a grave danger. The classes in our schools were too large, and children were taught, crammed with dates, &c, but not trained. In tho opinion of the lady lecturer training in self-control should begin in the cradle, and the baby who got everything it cried for often developed into the uu« controllable larrikin, Then the child dhould

6e taken in hand at the kindergarten— the ideal kindergarten, as Froebel intended it to be — where its inner faculties would be drawn out and guided by experienced teachers. After the public schcol3 were entered children should ba allowed to Require, while etill under tbe control and csre of teachtr3 and parents, some knowledge cf tho world. Quoting ADnie Bciant, she said that educatiou did more than legislation, for it dealt with the piano of mind. The evil eeeds of competition were bearing evil fruit the civilised world over, yet children were teught to look upon their fellows as rivals, to grze with respeeb at " self-made" men, to put money in ptnny banks ; and thus they grew up into the eelfish men and women of to-day. If all were traintd to Altruistic love, to look upon the failure cf others witb pity, not with selfish pleasure ; to givs, not to save, by-and-bye tio present horrible conflict that we call civilisation would cease, and tbe millennium would come. The best methods of teaching and punishing, of imparting physical, mental, and mor*l training, were discu-sed in an interesting manner, aud tbe lecture concluded with the advice to teach children that they were eternal, ppiritual, responsible beingg, with a vast past behind, an unlimited career of progress in front. There was a good attendance, and Mr G. Richardson occupied the chair.