The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1880. COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 357, 20 February 1880, Page 13

Th e New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1880. COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

§HE Dunedin School Committee lias unanimously decided that the compulsory clauses of the Education Act shall be brought into force in April next. This committee represents two hundred and fifty electors, out of a total of four thousand, It seems, therefore, an intolerable presumption on the part of this committee, which can hardly be said to ""^ represent anybody, to bring into operation clauses which it was in their discretion to enforce or not, and which must necessarily seriously affect large numbers of their fellowcitizens. We venture to say that were a poll of the city taken on this question the majority would be opposed to the adoption of compulsion. The motives that would influence men would of course be various, but the conclusion arrived at by the majority would most probably be against the course adopted by these seven gentlemen, who lepresent a handful of extreme men, and who

certainly do not represent the citizens. If a poll were taken Catholics would vote against compulsion on the ground that they could not justly compel any man to send his children to godless schools; all real lovers of liberty and haters of tyranny would vote against it, because the tyranny of a minority in power which compels men to send their children to schools which they abhor is the most odious and mischievous of all tyrannies, and a large number would vote against it because they do not wish gutter children to consort with their own. Under these circumstances it was expected that the New School Committee elected in a haphazard sort of way would have exhibited more prudence and delicacy of feeling, and postponed this burning question of compulsion. This expectation, however, has been disappointed, and, as some had anticipated, the committee has given another illustration of the pranks petty people usually to play when accidentally placed in positions of power and influence. The just indignation excited by this outrageous proceeding of the School Committee of Dunedin, and which is sure to be followed by many other equally absurd committees, should not be confined to the committee. The law it is that is chiefly to be blamed. It is with the system sanctioned by the Legislature men should feel dissatisfied, rather than with the action of a few men who have abused their ephemeral power to wrong and harass their Jellow citizens. Every one knows what pranks man dressed in a little brief authority is capable of playing before high heaven. Passing away, then, from the committee and their famous resolution to inflict compulsory education in godless schools on their fellow citizens, we shall consider for the thousandth time, the grievous injustice involved in the compulsion that the Legislature has authorised, If there be any one parental right which is more certain and more sacred than another, it is the right of parents to direct the education of their children. But this right is taken from them by the law which takes their money to maintain a system of education which they abhor, and then compels them to subject their children to its godless influence. But this is precisely what the law of New Zealand does. It establishes a baneful system of godless education, compels all citizens to pay for its establishment and maintenance, and then compels all who are unable to provide a Christian and moral education for their children, to send these to godless schools, to be brought up, not only without any knowledge of Christianity, but with a contempt for it. No greater injustice, no greater tyranny, can be imagined. If, indeed, the law provided, at the public expense, or even aided Christian denominational schools, the argument] in favour of compulsion in cases of neglect on the part of parents might be fairly maintained ; but so long as the law not only ignores but heavily taxes Christian schools, it is an intolerable tyranny to enforce compulsory godless education. The secularist denomination does not complain, nor can it, for it has everything- it wants, and that, too, " free, gratis, and for nothing." This denomination, although in a miserable minority, has succeeded, by adroitly manipulating the prejudice and bigotry of certain Christian sects, and appealing to the sacra auri fames of not a lew, in saddling the community at large with the expense of schools for the especial benefit of its own children, and in the unchristianising of all other children whom it may be able to compel to frequent its godless denominational schools. We write thus strongly not because there is the least likelihood of compulsion being really enforced in Dunedin, or anywhere else in New Zealand, but for the purpose of reprobating a detestable principle, and protesting against a crying injustice and a monstrous tyranny. Any one acquainted with the circumstances of the case knows that there is not the least intention to compel the " gutter children," for whom our system of education was ostensibly established, to attend public schools. Every one knows that the introduction of these children into our public schools would be the signal for the stampede of thousands of respictable children from them. We do not now pronounce an opinion on the wisdom or propriety of such a state of things. We merely point to the fact, and say, in the face of this fact, that compulsion will never be really enforced. The compulsory clauses will, no doubt, be employed to annoy ! parents who are sending their children to denominational schools, and in an effort to induce them to remove these children to Government institutions, but that any serious effort will be made to bring in the poor children who are now

I wandering about the streets we do not believe, notwithstanding the vapouring of the Evenimj Star. Time, however, will tell : and we need hardly say we shall be very attentive observers of the proceedings of School Committees in reference to this point.