SECULAR EDUCATION IN VICTORIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 10, 5 July 1873, Page 6

SECULAR EDUCATION IN VICTORIA.

The Godless system of education has had one year's trial in Victoria, and the results are not encouraging. It was stated by its friends in Parliament and the press that there were thousands of children not attending any school in the Colony, that the old system was uuable to reach them, and that the new one was especially designed for their benefit. Among the many objections raised by its opponents, not the least important was the enormous expense it would certainly entail on the Colony. Mr Francis and his party, however, laughed this objection to scorn. Well, one fact is worth more than a thousand theories ; and the patrons of Godless education have themselves been compelled to prove the truth of the predictions of the opposition. Formerly the education grant of Victoria amounted to about £180,000 per annum; this year the Minister of Instruction asks for £485,482— an advance in the year of £300,000. And this is only the beginning. What will be the amount of the demand next year ? It may be said, however, that the Government schools are more numerously attended than hitherto, This is true, but it is not the whole truth. The real question is, are there more children, relatively to the increase of population, in attendance at. the schools this year in the Colony than there were during the previous year ? And the next, is, have the neglected children been reached. What, in the first place, is the true state of the case in reference to the increased attendance at the Governmeat schools ? It arises, if not altogether at least chiefly, from the fact that large numbers of children who used to frequent private schools now patronise those of the Government on account of the gratuitous instruction given there. The additi mal pupils, therefore, are for the most part those whoso parents were able and willing to bear the expenses of their education, but who are now quite content to allow them to be educated at the public expense. Some, too, of the denominational schools have been handed over to the Government, and a part of the increase may, consequently, be attributed to this cause.

But what about the poorest and most neglected class of children? This is the all-important question; it is for such that G-overnment schools are intended, and if they do not attract the poorest and most neglected children in the community, there is hardly any reason why they should exist at all. People who are able to educate their children will do so. How is it, then, in Victoria ? " What about the gutter children ? It appears they are gutter children still ; and. not a few who had been at Government schools have, during the last year, been scared away by the large influx of respectable well dressed children. The denominations and the benevolent, at their own expense, may take charge of the gutter children, whilst the public educates gratuitously the children of respectable and well-to-do parents ; and politicians and bigots, in. order to secure for themselves place and pension, denounce popery and denominational education.

-But whilst the Victorian system of gratuitous education is in itself impolitic and unjust, whilst it compels people who have no children to pay for the education of their neighbours' children • in reference to the Catholics, it is especially tyrauical and unjust. The population is taxed at the rate of nine shillings per head for the support of this system ; and as Catholics are one in five, they must pay £100,000 this year for the maintenance of a system of education to which they are conscientiously opposed, whilst bearing the entire expense of the education of their own children. And the Victorian statesmen are not^ ashamed ! O Tempora ! O Mores !