FIAT JUSTITIA. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 11, 1878. TO BE ATTENDED TO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 284, 11 October 1878, Page 12

FIAT JUSTITIA. FRIDAY. OCTOBER 11, 1878. TO BE ATTENDED TO.

tOTHING is more common with the secularists of New Zealand than the contention that secular education by Government is cheap * much cheaper than a system under which voluntary — that is denominational — schools, are aided by the State. And this contention is maintained in defiance of notorious facts. This striking defiance of truth and decency can only be accounted for on the principle that it is only necessary to repeat for a considerable time a fallacy

agreeable to popular taste in order to, as it were, harden if into a fact, not to be questioned, in the public mind. Secularists know their public well, and are thoroughly well acquainted with the most efficacious mode of proceeding for creating an unreasoning public opinion. We have no doubt, therefore, that the public of New Zealand, accepting as gospel the teaching of the secular Press, is convinced that our present system of education is not only economical, but the most economical that could be devised. Our contention is, and has been from the first, the opposite oVHns. We hold that a system of secular education paid for lj Orovenimcnt is not only expensive, but the most expensive to the State that can be imagined. Theory first led us to this conclusion, which every day experience has only tended to confirm. It always appeared to us only reasonable to suppose that schools maintained in part only by the State could not possibly be as expensive to Government as schools maintained wholly by the State. This seems a self-evident proposition, as clear as the proposition that the half of four is two But our public instructors say No, you are quite mistaken ; the fact is, if you take two from four, you make the four six. This is, in reality, the contention of secularists. They say if the Government pay only a moiety of the expenses of public education, they are at greater expense than if they paid the entire sum required for schools. Such an argument is worse than childish. But leaving theory, let us come to undoubted facts. Everybody knows that in England there is a dual system of education— the secular and the denominational— or, as it is officially called, the voluntary, both equally aided by grants from the Government. This dual system has now been in operation for seven years. And what, let us ask, has been the well-ascertained result as to the relative expense to the State ? No higher authority on this question exists than the Minister who has charge of the Education Department in the House of Commons. This Minister, who is at present Lord G. Hamilton, moved, in committee in the House of Commons on the sth August last, the vote for public education in a remarkable speech. It is not our intention to burden our readers with all Lord Hamilton's figures, but, refer them, for a report of his speech to the Mail of the 7th August. There is only one part of his statement which concerns us to-day. From this it will be seen that secular schools are fice times more expensive to the ratepayer than denominational, or voluntary schools. We think we can do nothing better than give his lordship's own words on this point. Here they are, " The only public money, with the exception of a few fees, which voluntary schools received, was from the annual grant ; the whole of the rest of their income was drawn from private sources. School Boards, however, derived the chief part of their income from rates, which was as much public money as taxes, though levied locally. Deducting all private sources of income, and dealing only with the public money, the education of a child in voluntary schools costs the country 14s. 4d., in Board Schools £1 ] ss. o£d. But even tins comparison does not show the real cost of School Boards for he had excluded all expenditure except that of the maintenance of the school. The School Boards spend now three and two-thirds times as much from the rates as they get from the grant. If they had the whole of the grant they would be levying £6,750,000 in rates alone." How would the British ratepayer regard sucli crushing taxation as this ? The taxation of the School Boards amounts at present to something less than £400,000 annually ; but, were there no denominational or voluntary schools, this taxation would have been, instead of far less than half a million six millions seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling last year. Denominational schools, then, have saved the English people from additional taxation to the amount of nearly seven millions of pounds sterling in one year Nor can it be said that Secular or Board Schools are more efficient than the Voluntary. The aid given to all schools is apportioned m accordance with the results of examinations by Government Inspectors ; and Lord Hamilton states the amount granted per head during the last two years, in these words :— " As regarded the grant, the children in Board Schools had turned the tables this year upon the children in Voluntary Schools. Last year the grant to Voluntary Schools was 13s. 3fd., as against 13s. Ofd. ; this year it was 14s. 4d., as against 14s. sd. to Board Schools. The cost of maintenance per child was estimated in Voluntary Schools to be £1 13s. lid., in Board Schools £2 Is. 4^d." Here, then, is a proof of the error of these public writers who never weary of tiling the public that to aid Voluntary

Schools is to waste the public money. In England the experiment has been made of both Government Secular Schools and of Denominational or Voluntary Schools ; and the results show that Voluntary Schools are as efficient as Board Schools, and five times cheaper to the ratepayers. The experience of Victoria is* to the same effect. There it has been ascertained that under the aided school system as many children were as well educated at an expense of £180,000 as have been under the secular system for £500,000. Even here, in New Zealand, though this latter system has been very lately introduced as a general system, it is evident that -our experience will confirm that of England and Victoria. For the maintenance of schools we shall have to pay this year £200,000, and another £200,000 for the erection of school buildings. Nor will £200,000 suffice to provide sufficient school buildings throughout the country. See what a burden all this imposes on the taxpayers, a burden that is absolutely unnecessary, and without any real justification, a burden, too, which is imposed for the purpose of giving a free education to children well able to pay, in part at least, for their education,