THE EDUCATION BILL.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3294, 5 September 1871, Page 3

THE EDUCATION BILL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT. Sib, — I trust that nothing will prevent the Legislature from adopting without essential alteration clauses 55 and 5G of the Education Bill. It would not be desirable for the Government to do cither more or less than those clauses provide for. It would be impossible for tho Government to prescribe any kind of religious teaching whatever. This is admitted on all sides. No Government would venture to attempt anything of the kind. But when this has been admitted, it is not afterwards to be tacitly assumed that tho<religious teaching intended means only the Christian religion ; but that Comptism, or Secularism, or Naturalism, are not to be excluded from the fostering care of the State. It is mere nonsense to talk of treating rnun as though he could exist without some kind of religion. Tho most renowned materiulist of recent times is unquestionably M. Compte. But those who know bi3 ■works are awaro that ho has provided for his followers a catechism and ritual most elaborately and carefully drawn out. Of course secularism does not start with this ; nor did M. Compte. We are told by secularists that the spirit of tho age wishes to discard Christianity, and itself to take its place. This is not true : public opinion has not come to that. But were it true, what would ifc lead to? Let the shrewd Tacitus (ell us : Corruvifere et corrumpi secidum voeantttr. Perhaps that is a state to which we are are drifting again ; but it is one from which Christianity once delivered a large section of tho world. This may be an enlightened age; but the two new religions invented in the nineteenth eentuvy by the opponents of Christianity, namely, Mormonistn and Oomptism, do not contrast favorably with it. The legislature may take it for granted that a large portion of the community, whatever differences exist among them, will oppose any system of education from which religion is absolutely excluded. But for the legislature to establish a system of compulsory education, which will be sjstematically opposed by a largo proportion of tho population, determined to thwart ifc in apy way possible, would bo a serious mistake. Even to fail to enlist tho sympathies of earnest persona all over the country in support of a government plan of education would bo a blunder. — I am, &c, Vox.