The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1878. THE PROFESSOR AND THE "DAILY TIMES."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 260, 26 April 1878, Page 11

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1878. THE PROFESSOR AND THE "DAILY TIMES."

l/B esteemed contemporary of Dunedin has lately gone into ecstacies over Professor Pearson's Report on Education in Victoria. According to the Editor tins Eeport proves that it was a calumny which asserted that Professor Pearson's appointment as Commissioner of Education in the sister colony was a job, perpetrated to compensate the ex-Professor of the Ladies' College Melbourne, for losing at the same time his election, and his professorship, which he had resigned for the purpose of going into Parliament as #ne of Mr. Berry's whippers The Daily Times has given a long list of Professor Pearson's academic honours, employments, and general qualifications lor the post he holds at present, at a salary of about one thousand pounds sterling per annum. This is a good round sum, and of course it imposed on the Professor the necessity of showing some work, or at all events, of making believe, somehow, that the money was not absolutely thrown away. The Professor is, no doubt, at least an honest man, and would not on any account eat the bread o idleness ; so we have this long Report, which extends to almost two hundred pages of the usual size of reports presented to Sovereigns, Governors, and Parliaments. If value is to be estimated by length, the Professor has indeed done good work; but whether it is worth a thousand pounds per annum sterling may still be doubted. The Daily Times oi Utago has, however, no doubt whatever; in our contemporary c estimation it is cheap, dog cheap, at the money ; and is a clear proof that the great Democratic Government of Victoria acted most wisely in giving the great Professor of the Ladies College Melbourne, a thousand a-year, wherewithal to console himself for being rejected by that unappreciative constituency which preferred his unworthy rival. Oh for a Datbj Times in Victoria to teach clodocrats the value of Proiossor Pearsox and his hundred and sixty or seventy paces or thereabouts ! J F 6 ' Now that we have time duly to reflect upon it, we feel deeply humbled to think that our ignorance, or want of genius, or of that genuine love of liberty which drives democrats to pry mto the most private concerns of families, and T»l **£* ie r^»tion of men's kitchens and wardrobes, £^?J? ° f ° Ur ing aWeto cla P our hands and join m chorus with our contemporary in crying "Bravo!" in appreciation and honour of this wonderful Jifport. We are unhappriy, under the impression— with shame we say it-i

that this great and exhaustive Report is badly written « that m a literary point of view, it is not very creditable to an exProfessor of a Ladies' College, and a Commissioner, and <i Commission too, of Education. We think wp discover in >t some mistakes as to ordinary grammar and composition ISiit vre must suppose that all this is the natural outcohie of our ignorance. And no doubt our readers -will fancy tliiit this is not surprising, as we must be supposed to know more about Irish than English. Well, we. shall endeavour to improve and to this end shall make a still more^profound study of this grammatical and eloquently written 'Report, which has won the enthusiastic approval of our learned and eloquent contemporary. But the scholarly style of this great Report is not the only quality that arrests the attention of the Times and wins its approbation and praise. Not at all, this Report abounds lin excellences. It is scholarly, grammatical of course, most | correct m composition, clear, in some places in fact nearly as clear as mud ; but it is also a great deal more, it abounds in liberal principles, philosophy and political wisdom, this is its clnei recommendation to our excellent contemporary For i example, the wise Professor proposes to introduce some new j regulations to secure the perfect working of compulsion • and so enamoured is our contemporary of these that he scoffs at the Britisher thinking for a moment that he has any ritrht natural or acquired, to freedom of action in reference to the education of his children. This is altogether a childish idea fit only for a man who thinks that he does possess some natural rights in his own household, but altogether unbecoming 1? a fr ll 4 ™% ed democrat, and very properly repudiated b? the defeated democratic candidate. Professor Pearson proposes, in order that all may be compelled to send their children to school, that all parents and guardians shall register their children of school age and that on removal from one locality to another, they shall be bound by a stringent law to give a list of their children to the Govern ment schoolmaster ! Hear ye this, all you besotted advocates of the liberty of the subject and of man, all you, not Pearson and Berry democrats, hear ye this ; give a list of your children to the Government school master of your several districts else you shall be carried away to some loathsome prison • and serve you right for not knowing how to understand and appreciate democratic liberties and rights. Professor Peakson also proposes that Government inspectors shall not confine themselves to Government schools, but shall also be bound to inspect private and denominational schoois^notforthepurposeofdestroyingthen^buttorenderthein more efficient, of course. And here is the way in which it is to be done. All children attending private and denominational schools must present themselves before the Government In spectors, and if in consequence of stupidity, idleness, or fear ol the great man, they happen not to give the Government Inspector what he may consider sufficient proof of their havingattained the required standard, they are then to be compelled to leave the schools selected for them, and entirely maintained by their parents, and are to be driven by the policeman's baton into the godless Government schools, where, of course, no one l S £ er . Stupid ' idle ' or bashfuI > where the teachers must be efficient, since they have the approbation of the great scholar, writer, philosopher, politician and democrat, ex-Pro~ fessor Pearson of the Ladies' College, Melbourne. Ex-Professor Pearson and his party do not wish to destroy .all Catholic schools, and to render the existence of such in the future impossible. Not at all ; they love liberty that is all ; that is, they love the license to do what they please themselves, and what pleases them most is that no one else shfll have any liberty at all, or possess any rights, except tne right to do what their consciences abhor. The old idea of freedom was this, viz., that men should be at liberty to do what is right; but this is now exploded by democrats, who have substituted in its place another idea and definition Liberty, according to modern thought, consists in a license to do wrong, to violate conscience, and trample on revelation But to demand to be free to do what is in accordance with truth justice, and conscience, is, according to the miscalled Liberals oi the day, nothing short of an usurpation, in fact a tyranny Now-a-days the genuine freeman is not he who acts according to or demands the right to act according to truth, justice ami conscience, but one who despises and tramples on all tliwv Things have changed their names, and men's minds have become obscured and confused. Professor Pearson has received instructions to devise means of carrying out his suggestions. The great Liberals

of "V ictoria are preparing to enforce an odious tyranny that can only result in loosening all the bonds of society, and leading to a fearful reaction. The history of the world is full of cases which ought to be a warning to Victorian statesmen, if they have minds capable of taking a warning. Men will not long put up with this tyranny of sciolists and schoolmasters, will not long tolerate their impertinent intrusion into their houses i and family concerns, will not long endure their inter-, ference in matters which concern themselves, and themselves alone, in the vast majority of cases. Already, even in Victoria, the mutterings of discontent and resistance are heard, as they have been heard in many other lands where a similar tyranny has been attempted. Victorian democrats had better study the lesson now being read to them by the discontented at Ballarat, who are, as yet, only intensely indignant . at the enforcement of the compulsory clauses of the Victorian education law.