AN INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE ON SECULAR RESULTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 46, 14 March 1884, Page 19

AN INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE ON SECULAR RESULTS.

(From the Sydney Freeman's Journal.") If -the Inspector-General of Police is an authority on the subject, the Education Act has signally failed to accomplish one of the purposes for which it has been passed. The strongest argument advanced at its passing, and repeated more than four years ago, 5n favour of appropriating a large amount of public money to establish and maintain a system of State education, was the prediction that it would be the means of raising the moral tone of the rising generation. It was contended that the boys and girls of that time would grow tip into superior young men. and women under the elevating influence of a secular system of education, and some at least of those who asserted this no doubt conscientiously believed it. Larrikins of both sexes were to gradually disappear until they ultimately became extinct pests. There were others who held the contrary opinion, and warned the country that the result of collecting large numbers of children into the State schools without religious restraints or influences would be to generally demoralize them. A great outcry was made over the prediction of the late Archbishop Vaughan about " future seed-plots of immorality," but honlble as was the stigma, it is still more startling and terrible to find the Inspeptor-General of Police in an official document significantly insinuating, if not directly stating, that it is jastified by the results. We have no desire to strain Mr. Fosbery's words to " grosser -ssue or to larger reach " than a fair interpretation, but it would be iast as great a failure in the discharge of a public duty to avoid the consideration of his, no doubt, well-weighed words and permit the public to remain in a fool's paradise with regard to the working oi the Education Act. It may be assumed that the Inspector General has not exaggerated, for his official position gives his opinions an importance which must create a strong feeling of responsibility, and the probability rather is that he knows much more than be unfolds. He says enough, however, to justify a strong feeling of uneasiness throughout the country, and attract the special attention of the Government and Parliament. In his report for 1883, which haß just been published, Mr. Fosbery refers back to that for 1880, in which he called the attention of the then Colonial Secretary to the "idle and d ! ssolute habits" of the young people of both sexes, which he attributed to the employment of boys and girls in factories, where they earned good wages with too many leisure hours and were practically under no control. In his present report the InspectorGeneral writes : —

"I regret now to say that there has been no improvement, but rattier the reverse, since that report was written. The more general diffusion of education does not appear to have had the moral effect upon the classes referred to which was hoped for. I find, upon careful examination of the records, daring a period of six months, respecting 494 young persons— male and female—who were apprehended for minor offences, but who, from their known dissolute habits, may be expected to lapse into a career of crime and immorality that of this large number twenty-four only were without education, and unable to read and write." Considering the caution which usually hedges about a high official, this is pretty plain speaking, and although Mr. Fosbeiy has perhaps gone as far as his duty demanded, this portion of his report would have been more interesting had he gone a little further. The a S es o* the 47 ° young criminals who were not without education might have been stated, and some infoimation given as to how many +1 ? J 3 ?^ attended state schools. Possibly, only a minority of them had had the advantage supposed to be connected with attending those institutions, though from Mr. Fosbery's remarks it may be concluded that most of them had, but that in his opinion the State schoold are failures as training establishments, so far as regards the morals of the children. He observes further on in his report that • the effect of the whipping clauses of the Criminal Law " has yet to be proved with respect to youthful offenders, as at the time the report was written only one adult had been flogged. He does not express any opinion as to the result, but it is a remarkable outcome of the education system, and one which can only create a painful sensation, that the only gleam of hope to be obtained from the Inspector-General's report is that the "cat" may succeed where the Education Act fails.