A CLERGYMAN ON THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS.

Western Star, Issue 278, 4 January 1879, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CLERGYMAN ON THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS.

At a time when the clergy of different denominations appear trying who can say the most ill-natured things of the education system of the colony, it is well to be able to quote 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 called upon for a speech, and in 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 in Victoria, I, with other clergymen, regretted that all religious instruction was excluded from 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 great compensation in these 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 in 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 from the State is that in the matter of imparting religious instruction no obstacles are placed in their way, and that they are not put in a worse position than before by the existence of the State system. But Archdeacon Crawford says 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 assimi-

Istad, and to produo* a bettor effect. Considering tho olerieal bias on thiasubjeoi, one witness on this side is, other conditions similar, equal to seyeral against,' and the evidence of Arehdeaeon Crawford is, there*' fore, a welcome contribution to the elucida-' tion of an important question.--' Australasian/ * <• ' ■ ■ ‘ ;i - 1 L