THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 14, 24 July 1885, Page 15

THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION.

gentleman delivered his long-promised speech )mtfK§SJt on education in the House of Representatives H! InMr ' on Tuesday. A- on S report of it appeared in a tPSwx^ c e<^ 011 °^ * ac Evening Herald on Tuesday, §tSsl tt> an( * we wa^ e< l U P f° r *t expecting a brilliant oration '^rflfrgy from His Honor and read it before retiring to a Jg£*' rest, which caused us to lose an hour's sleep. Nor were we rewarded for this loss. The report which we suppose is a correct one, and which, at all events, reflects great credit on the enterprise of the Herald, disappointed us. The speech so long promised and so anxiously expected, and which must have occupied a large portion of the time of the House has nothing remarkable about it except its length, its commonplace and the assumption running through it that the House of Representatives was ignorant of the short history of our present education system and its conditions. More than three-fourths of the speech was taken up in giving a very poor resume of this history and these conditions. The House could have been well, spared all this, more particularly at the present time, when the whole of the time of hon. members and their undivided attention should be employed in devising means to alleviate the wide spread depression under which the country is suffering. It is a pity the Hon. the Minister of Education can never divest himself of the idea that he is the only man in the country who knows anything. That part of his speech in which he gives a list of distinguished New Zealand students is especially painful, and humiliating. What ? the Minister of Education employed in eulogising in Parliamant a number of half-educated youths and'claiming credit for the efficiency of New Zealand educational institutions because two graduates of our University, an A.M. and an A. 8., successfully passed the matriculation examination of the London University ! Why, bathos could no further go ; nor could the Minister of Education do or say anything more calculated to bring contempt on our educational institutions than make such a claim. And what is to be thought of the mental capacity of the man who thought he was making a point by such a proceeding ? Another proof of a little mind and a defective judgment is to be found in his assertion that religion is taught in our common schools because the name of God and some moral lessons are to be found in some of the books permitted to be used in these schools, and his assumption that atheists, infidels, et hoc genus omne, have a right to complain that the name of God is mentioned even historically, as would be the name of Jupiter, etc., in schools which are paid for by, it may be said, an exclusively Christian people. If in the former case the force of bathos could no farther go, in the present instance the force of conceit could no farther go. Here the Minister's assumption is, that the entire community, the ninety-nine hundreds of the people should abandon their Christian principles and support schools that will meet the views of a handful of Freethinkers. Judging from the Herald's report of it, a more disappointing Bpeech we have never read . It has neither eloquence nor argument, nothing to stimulate the intellect, nothing to fire the fancy, not a spark of wit or humour. It is humdrum, commonplace in its matter, ridiculous in its assumptions, slovenly in its diction, altogether a production unworthy of a third class schoolmaster, and its tone that of a pedagogue who undertakes to.

enlighten a class of urchins not far advanced in the three R.'s. Its omissions, too, are very striking. Nothing is said about the crushing monopoly set up by his favourite system ; how it has efficaciously shut up all private and denominational schools, with the exception of such as are Roman Catholic, and rendered healthy competition impossible. Nothing is said about the enormous and unnecessary expense except, indeed, to recommend an increase of it. Nothing is said about the £100,000 wasted annually in providing a restingplace, a system of nurseries for infants between fve and seven years of age ; nothing about the monopoly, by one class, of scholarships, although all the people are compelled to pay for them. The Minister's political vision must be very limited. He cannot even conceive a national system of education that would be religious ! and in accordance with the law of God. He has no idea that any except a godless system can be possible. He cannot imagine that all denominations might be compelled, and assisted on equitable principles, to maintain schools for their own children. He cannot even imagine that possible which nevertheless exists in Canada, England, Prussia, Austria, etc. So it is, and in view of this state of his mind it is not surprising his speech is so dull, spiritless, and utterly commonplace. It is not, however, without drift, and that is, that more money, even in these depressed times, should be spent in providing more godlessness, because he thinks it should be so. May heaven help the country that has such a Minister of Education.