Our National Schools: In Defence

Southland Times, Issue 14287, 2 March 1899, Page 3

Our National Schools: In Defence

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I venture to enter my” protest against the reference to our national schools which appears in your leading article on Saturday. You start out with the intention of dealing with the matter of sexual immorality as disclosed at the Supreme Court’s late sessions. “The good of the community,” you say, “ demands that we examine the evil, find the cause or causes if we can, and suggest a remedy.”. But you at once fly off at a tangent, and cast a slur on our national schools. The reference is quite foreign to your text; inasmuch as you answer your own proposition a. few sentences further on, thus : “ What is the cause ? Can we point to the origin of this abomination? We think so—a.o least to the chief causes.” You then deliberately lay -the blame upon parents for not exercising proper parental control; and I shall not dispute ’your contention. Having thus decided the question why do you mention something which has naught.to do with the cause? Here is whab I object to : You speak of objectionable written matter which children bring home from their class-rooms, and express yourself unsurprised ab staunch Protestants sending their children to. convent schools, “ believing that the religious teachings of Rome are less objectionable than the germs of this vile cancer.” There is later on aninconsequenbreference to Bible-reading, in schools. You do not, however, press that as a necessity in fighting the evil, because you say that the home is where religious instruction should be chiefly, given. For any persons to send their children to private schools because of something objectionable in the public schools is akin to the action of the ostrich when pursued in hiding its head and leaving its great body exposed. If those evils exist in public schools, what guarantee have you that they do not also exist in private schools ? How can you tell, seeing that no right of inquiry exists into the working of private schools. Per contra, if any scandal arise in a public school every one knows of it. Thus it happens that the public know the worst features that attach to public schools, and are only informed of the best characteristics of the private schools, and are apt to form impressions based on such knowledge. If a scandal occur in a private school it is hushed up. That happens as a matter of course ; and also as a matter 'of course our national schools, being public, their scandals are exposed. Schools have their faults in that human nature has its faults. Human nature is the same in a private school as it is in a public school. But, supposing that the evils were proportionately greater in the public schools, are we to emulate the ostrich ? You would have us run away from the evils which should be faced in a manly way and stamped out. There are some other points in your article which I should have liked to refer to, but consideration for your space deters me. But, sir, lam one who is proud of our national system of education and grateful for its benefits; and, if it be shown to have defects, will in my own sphere do my best to assist in having them removed, so that it may be gradually perfected. —I am, etc., W. J. Marsh. Wyndham, February 27, 1899.