DX. MORAN AND EDUCATION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 173, 1 June 1871, Page 7

DX. MORAN AND EDUCATION.

(To tlie Editor.)

Sir, — Yonr contemporary, the" Ofcngo Daily Times," is deserving of thanks for his impartial and truthful report of the Bishop's addresses on education, as delivered in St. Joseph's Church, and I am glad to see that his Lordship acknowledged this last Sunday evening. A spirit of fair play is thus established, which I trust will be followed up ; and another advantage is (as the Bishop's last address fully proves) that outside misrepresentation can be refuted when we have a faithful report on record. But while chunking the " Daily Times" for its truthful and, as the Bishop says, " wonderfully accurate " reports, exception must be taken to the views expressed in the leading columns of the " Daily Times " — views which at all events the best instructed in our community not only disagree with, but utterly repudiate. As one of the leading journals in New Zealand, it is not right that its false teaching should go unchallenged, and I have not taken my pen to do duty in the matter without looking in vain for some abler champion. In reading the leaver of this day in the " Daily Times " {i.e. Monday, 29th May) I find inter aliaihe following astounding sentence, containing a doctrine new to me, and new, 1 think, to the great majority of my fellow colonists. Referring to the Council of the New Zealand University in Dunedin, the writer in the " Daily Times says, "Is it an acknowledgment of the commercial or numercial im portance of the city of Dunedin? or is it a tribute of homage to the superior intellectual activity of the New Zealand Edinburgh, and of the greater interest in and higher appreciation of the value of education by our Otago settlers, as evinced by our superior schools and school system, the admiration of all New Zealand, Dr. JS'Loran notwithstanding /"' Most surely, from the wording of the above, the writer must wish us to accept his latter hypothesis, though the former is most incontrovertibiy the better of the two ; but, strange to relate, further on he gives us a better style, aucl one which, I guess, his really good judgment led him into unawares — to wit the fact th.it in all probability Dunedin was selected as the place of meeting, with the common sense hope that it might lead to the amalgamation of the Otago University with the New Zealand (or vice versa if any one likes it belter), and thus do nway with the absurd farce of two Universities, where room barely exists for one. How any man possessed of the intelligence which the writer in the writer in the " Daily Times," whose production I now have under review, evidently is, can seriously write such twaddle as that which I have quoted and italicised is a mystery to myself and to many others with whom I conversed upon the subject. I very much fear, sir, that a few more years will prove that our education S}'stern, and particularly its administration, is not the superior thing which its votaries seem to think. That it is inefficient to teach anything but the most absolute rudiments, any one of our country schools would amply testify if only placed under the lynx eye of a competent inspector. As a member of the community, and as one greatly and most vitally interested in education matters, I protest against the inhabitants of this province lulling themselves to sleep with the (false) assurance that it is all right, and that we have

" superior schools and school system, the admiration of all New Zealand." If the remark is intended to apply to the school buildings only, I grant that there may be some truth in it ; but if it refers iv any manner to the system, its administration, or general efficiency, I deny it in toto, and challenge contradiction — being well aware that it is in my power to upset such contradiction by the inexorable logic of facts. Although oy no means agreeing with all that Dr. Moran advances, I so far agree with him as to think that we ought to be (as I doubt not we shall all some clay be) very grateful to him for having raised the hue and cry. Dr. Moran, is, I believe, acting conscientiously for the good of the church to which he belongs, and I -"firmly believe that Protestants, (aye, eveiy section of them) will yet come to see that in benefiting his own, Dr. Moi-an has also" benefited every other church, by endeavouring to upsec a quasi secular system of education which is in reality devoted entirely to the teaching of the tenets of one peculiar faith. — I am, &c, No SABEK FIRMAR.