A CLERGYMAN ON THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 597, 11 January 1879, Page 2

A CLERGYMAN ON THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS.

At a time when the olergy of different denominations appear trying who can say the most Ulnatured things of the education system, of the colony, it is well to be able to qilbte a clerical witness who gives very strong and definite testimony on the other side. At the opening of the City Model Schools at Adelaide the other day, Archdeacon Crawford, of Castlemaine, who was present as a visitor, was galled upon for a speech and m the course of his remarks, which bore reference to the working of the Victorian system, he said : — " I will take this opportunity of mentioning an exceedingly gratifying fact which I have plainly observed as the result of this system of state education as it is carried on m Victoria. I, with other clergymen, regretted that all religious instruction was * excluded f:om the schools, but from the first I saw that it was quite needless to fight against it, and I find from experience that there is greater compensation m theße respects. The schools are better, the teachers are more experienced, the discipline is greater, the attention of the children is more exercised, and the powers of learning are certainly vastly improved ' and when I assemble the young members of my church to receive religious instruction I find that I have less trouble m teaching them, and they more readily comprehend what they are being taught." Well, this evidence, coming from so competent an authority, is most valuable. All that the churches are entitled to ask irom the State is that, m the matter of imparting religious • instruction, no obstacles are placed m their way, and that they are not put m a worse position than before by the existence of the State system. But Archdeacon Crawford says that the State does more than this. He finds that the State education gives an excellent preparatory training, which enables the religious teaching to be more readily assimilated, and to produce a better effect. Considering the clerical bias on this subject, one witness on this side is, other conditions similar, equal to several against, and the evidence of Archdeacon Crawford is, therefore, a welcome contribution to the elucidation of an important question.