OTAGO SCHOOL SYSTEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 57, 30 May 1874, Page 7

OTAGO SCHOOL SYSTEM.

During the week there have been two debates in the Provincial Council on the subject of Education. One had reference to the reading of the Bible in Common Schools, the other regarded the High School ; and both resulted in the maintenance of the status quo. There is to be no redress of recognised grievances. Catholic children, who are untortunately compelled to frequent the Common Schools may, as has hitherto been the case in very many instances, be still obliged to read the Protestant Bible, and learn Protestant prayers, should their parents forget or neglect to give formal notice to the teachers that they object to any interference with the religion of their children. The Provincial Council claims the right to teach Protestantism to all children of Catholic parents who do not object, in express terms, no matter how unwilling they may really be that such teaching should be given. This is high-handed with a vengeance, but it is not all ; Catholics must continue to pay taxes for the maintenance of a system of education, fiom the teaching staff of which they are excluded, as efficaciously as if there had been an express enactment to that effect. A majority, it appears, can be as great a tyrant as the greatest despot that ever trampled on the rights, liberties, and religious feelings of a people. In a measure, it is with us as it is in Switzerland, where a majority of 100,000, in a population of millions, undertakes to repeal the constitution of the country, annul the in.memorial rights and customs of the Cantons, and annihilate the Catholic Church. Truth and justice are no longer attended to ; the voice of the majority repeals the laws of nature, of God, and of religion. This is the tyrrany of the 19th Century, in which despotism and license have united to trample on all riphts and all liberties.

lie Otago High School is to continue to afford cheap education to the children of the well-to-do people of Dunedin, for it is of vtry little use to any others. The Province has provided, at a very large expenditure, suitable buildings for the Boys' ard Girls' High Schools, and, in addition, spent even last year more than £1600 on the education of 108 boys, sons of well-to-do people, and between £300 and £400 on the education of young ladies. It has been said, indeed, that the Girls' High School is self-supporting, but any one who investigates the figures of the last Education Report will see that this is not a fact. This is the state of things the Provincial Council of Otago approves of, and is resolved to maintain. It is needless to ask is this wise, just, and politic. Why should not the young ladies and gentlemen of Oamaruj Invercargill, and other localities, have cheap music, and drawing, and French, and fancy work, Latin and Greek, and mathematics, within reach as well as those of Dunedin : and, if they have not these advantage?, why should the people' of these localities be called upon to pay money to enable the rich people of Dunedin to give their children a high education ? Or again, why should the laborer, for example, of Dunedin itself, be called upon to help to teach accomplishments to the daughters of his employer? We must confess we are stupid enough to be unable to see either the justice or acuity of such a course.

If the Provincial Government wish to deal fairly with the people, and to encourage education, let it content itself with providing rudimental education on equitable principles for the community at large ; and in order to raise up a sufficient number of educated persons for the well-being of the Province, let it establish exhibitions to re obtained by pupils of any school, whether denominational, private, or public, who can stand the test of a strict examination. But this is not the wish of certain gentlemen amongst us, -whose object

it is to create an education monopoly which will certainly fill the coffers of the officials of select and pampered institutions, whatever may be said as to the real scholarship that may result. The public have heard a great deal lately about cram, and the raising the standard of education. But does it not seem ridiculous that such language should' be used by men in Otago, when one bears # in mind the nature of the entrance examination of the Otago University, and the position held by the Otago candidates at the examinations of the New Zealand University. If the people of Otago are ever to be a really educated people, there must be a different system, and other men to administer it.