TOPICS OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue III, 16 January 1897, Page 58

TOPICS OF THE WEEK.

SPARE THE ROD. AT the recent annnal meeting of the New Zealand Educational Institute in Auckland it was pointed out that the tendency to either abolish or limit corporal punishment was proving disadvantageous to the conduct and management of some of the more unmanageable pnpils. The subject was brought up by the Southland representative, who wished the Council to put its views on this important question in definite form, representative of the general attitude of the teaching profession, so that branch institutes might be in a position to take united action where necessary ‘ with a view to retaining in teachers' hands those powers necessary to maintain thorough discipline in schools.’ The council, however, showed no special desire toexpressany nnited opinion on the subject. The members discussed it gingerly, and then it was withdrawn after one member had advised that attention should be called to the subject through the medium of the press. It is pretty evident that the corporal punishment queston is one on which the Council is chary of expressing its views, which, so far as I can guess, are much rather in favour of than against the nse of the rod. If the whole community were composed of schoolboys one could understand this hesitancy, for then to advocate corporal punishment would be equivalent to ostracising oneself for ever and a day. The schoolboy's mind is systematically prejudiced against any member of the teaching profession. He generally sees in him a natural enemy, and for a body representing all the teachers of the colony to smile approval on cane or strap or any other instrument of torture would brand the whole profession as the bloodthirsty enemies of mankind. But as the community is not composed of schoolboys en tirely, but contains a fair proportion of men and women, who presumably can take a wider view of the question than schoolboys, one is surprised that the members did not make a strong expression of opinion in this matter. Or could it be that they were afraid of the parents as well as of the children ? I begin to think that that may have had something to do with it. They dreaded perhaps the misconstruction some parents would put on a resolution embodying their confidence in the efficacy of corporal punishment. And when I consider some of the parental complaints I have heard, I am not so sure that their fears were groundless. The crass stupidity displayed by some parents here in rearing their offspring is beyond belief. They exercise a leniency towards the youngsters that is positively criminal, and the alarming increase in larrikinism, or, at any rate, of ill manners and want of respect in the young, seems to teach the mothers and fathers no lesson. It is bad enough when they systematically neglect the home culture and education of their families —so often the case in these colonies—but things are ten times worse when they put obstacles in the way of the only other instrument of education short of the prison—the school —and thwart the teachers in their endeavours to enforce discipline. More than one instr nee has come under my notice in which the fond mother objected to anything stronger than moral suasion being applied in the correction of her young hopeful who was as susceptible to moral suasion as a cat is to a compliment. Appeal to their better feelings, their gentlemanly instincts, is what you hear some wiseacres advise. Better feelings and gentlemanly instincts ! Fiddlesticks 1 The majority of boys feel best through their skins, and not through their hearts or their heads, and in nine cases out of ten you have got to implant the gentlemanly instincts. When parents or school committees or boards favour the disuse of corporal punishment they take out of the teacher's hands one of the most effective of instruments in the education of the young. If all the boys who came under their notice were naturally gifted with finer feelings and gentlemanly instincts, or had them taught to them at home, the teacher would doubtless get along well without either cane or strap, and I feel sure that most teachers would gladl- dispense with both. But when they have to deal with young barbarians, who are amenable to nothing except actual physical pain or inconvenience, the corrective power of the stick cannot be over estimated. Let us have done with this molly-coddling of our youngsters, and place a little more confidence in our teachers. Surely our boys can stand a tap of a cane as well as their fathers did ; and if they cannot then they are of very little account. But it is not the boys who are so much to'.blame in this matter as the parents. One expects that a boy will shirk punishment ; the George Washingtons are abnormal creatures. But the parents should know better than to encourage him. That encouragement is tantamount to teaching him to laugh at discipline and throw respect for authority to the winds, and I would not give much for the generation trained on these principles.

THE SOUTH CASE. THAT section of the public which regards the policeman as its natural enemy will doubtless rejoice in the decision of the Minister of Justice in regard to the South case ; and even those who entertain no such easilv understood antagonism to the representatives of law and order may feel pleased at the result of the inquiry. For my part I have little sympathy with those who take this view of the case. Although I am prepared to admit that the officers committed a serious blunder, I feel that the treatment proposed to be meted out to them errs on the side of seventy. It may be unbecoming to question the decision arrived at, or to doubt the impartial spirit of the inquiry, but one is tempted to ask whether the judges in the matter may not have been unconsciously influenced to some extent by the public furor. In this democratic country there is a terrible danger of the public voice and sentiment exercising a greater power than it has any right to do. It would be ail very well if vox populi were always vox Dei but we know that since the day they cried for Barabbas the people have not been remarkable for fine discrimination. As to the effect of the sentences on the police that is another affair. The dismissal of the two constables the reduction ofa third, the enforced resignation of Sergeants Gamble and MacMahon may teach the force a valuable lesson in courtesy and care ; but I sincerely hope that justice will be tempered with merer in the matter, and that the Department will not withold from the sergeants the allowances they had earned by long years of faithful service before this unfortunate affair.

BLAVATSKY COME AGAIN. IT has fallen to the lot of few of us to look on Madame Blavatsky in the flesh, that is, the identical flesh she carried about with her when she walked the world as Madame Blavatsky ; but we are, in the course of the next day or so, to make her acquaintance in somebody else’s flesh. At least we are given to understand bv some of the Theosophic body that a certain Mrs Tingley, who is now going to descend on this colony along with other Theosophical Crusaders, as they style themselves, is none other than the reincarnation of H.P.B. In fairness to the Theosophical body it is only right to mention that some of the brethren deny that Mrs Tingley is not a reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky. They only admit that occasionally the Aura of Madame surrounds and penetrates Missus. I don’t pretend to know precisely what this means, and I don’t know what claims Mrs Tingley herself makes ; but, roughly speaking—and that, after all, is the only way in which we poor, unenlightened creatures not learned in the Secret Doctrine and unable to appreciate the fine spiritual distinctions of the Theosophists will speak—roughly speaking, Mrs Tingley is recognised by tha American Branch of the Theosophical Society which seceded from the main body as H.P.B. come again. Mr Bincham Harding, a recognised lecturer of the seceded faction , distinctly stated some time ago that the lady ‘ has not only been recognised by himself and other members of the American branch of the Theosophical Society who knew H.P.B. in her former life, but the striking physical and facial resemblance has also been noted bv members of the English branch.' Whatever mental or physical qualifications Mrs Tingley has for her high office her name is unquestionably against her. A punster, it is true, might find in it occasion for a ghostly and ghastly pun. but to the serious mind it has nothing of that rich, mouth-filling, esoteric quality which belongs to Blavatsky. However, I understand that little difficulty is got over in the Society by alluding to the lady as the ‘Outer Head. ‘Outer Head,' especially when you are careful about the capitals, is good. It mar mean anything.

The crusade which Mrs Tingley beads emanates from America, and the object of it is to go out into all the world and preach the gospel of Theosophy. We have had some ladies and gentlemen preaching it in this colon v for some time past, but apparently Theosophy, like Christianity, needs a revival now and again, and the crusaders have come to revive us. According to their own accounts they have been very successful wherever they have gone, and they are hopeful that they can do as good business here as they have elsewhere. In Athens, for instance, though speaking i n an un . known tongue, they formed a lodge, and thev guess—in the American sense, too, of the verb—(that Athens will ‘ in a few years become a great centre of Theosophic thought as it was in the days of Plato, before the Ancient Mysteries became profaned? I wonder what success they will have in New Zealand. We are a pretty sceptical crowd in this colonv, with a much sharper eye for material than for spiritual benefits, but if the crusaders can show us anv goo<l thing we shall not be backward to embrace it. Up to the present the missionaries of the Higher Wisdom here have not obtained many converts, but Heaven only

knows what this crusade conducted with ‘ American go ’ may accomplish. It is not impossible that before the crusaders march hence we may one and all be jabbering about our ‘astral bodies,' ‘transfiguration,’ ‘transsubstantiation,' and perhaps there may yet be discovered a genuine Mahatma in the unexplored recesses of the Southern Alps.

GOING DOWN WITH THE SHIP. rpHE banks in the North-Western States of America _L appear to be passing through a financial crisis somewhat similar to that which we in these colonies had to experience. But there is one big difference between their plight and ours. It is in the way the managers of the wrecked or at least apparently foundering institutions behave. Commercial etiquette in the States seems not nnlike marine etiquette in this respect, that it appears to be the thing for the captain to go down with his ship. When a skipper gets his craft into trouble and all, or nearly all is lost, the correct thing for the gallant seaman is to stand by to the end and then take a header from the bridge. In the same way in the States, when the rotten institution is breaking up into smithereens, and the banker sees the agonised faces of his clients looking reproach at him, he goes into his room, gets his six-shooter from the drawer, and retires in smoke from the world. Fortunately for Australasian bankers, the commercial etiquette is different here, or we might have had quite an epidemic of felo de se. If I were a banker I think I should rather open business here than in the States, where so much seems to be expected of vou. In these colonies the unfortunate bankers can in the words of Longfellow —Deem the irrevocable past Not wholly wasted, wholly vain. For rising on its wrecks at last To something nobler they attain.

FIRST FLOWER OF THE EARTH. THE touch of the tax collector, like that of Nature, makes the whole world kin. There is an excellent instance of this in Ireland at the present day. In that ‘ distreshful counthry ' of fights and factions it appears to be extremely difficult to get any two individuals to agree on any one thing unless it be an antipathy to the authorities. But now a common ground of agreement has been found on which all classes and creeds can unite. Catholics and Protestants, landlords and tenants, Home Rulersand L’nionists, peersand beggars—they are all in perfect accord in this matter, namely, that Ireland is inequitably taxed, and that they must have redress. It is simply marvellous the unanimity that prevails on this question ; or, after all, is it so wonderful ? Don't we find that over all the world the great question of the day is one of pounds, shillingsand pence, and that the great majority of mankind is much more susceptible in the pocket than in the heart. A cynical way of looking at life, you may say. but I am afraid it is not far off the truth. Here is a nation that have been bickering amongst themselves for heaven knows how many generations ; here they are in sympathetic accord at last. Statesmen have cudgelled their brains for a panacea for the woes of Ireland. Perhaps fate has decreed that it shall be found in this very agitation : and that when the agitation has ceased all differences of creed and race and politics will have vanished and Irishmen be united in one happy family. To what goal this concentration of all interests may lead so faras England is concerned is another question. It may have good and it may have evil results, just according to the measure of consideration the Imperial authorities give to the Irish demands.