A SIGNIFICANT FAILURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 50, 5 April 1889, Page 17

A SIGNIFICANT FAILURE.

§E learn from a correspondent of the Otago Daily Times that a shock has been given at Auckland to faith in the inherent excellence of human nature. It seems that a conviction prevailed in the city that the young mind, of its own intrinsic virtue, longed for knowledge, and that all that was needed was that fountains should be tapped, to which it would of its own accord fly to draw in copious draughts. In other words, a public that appears to have been rather speculative, and but little experienced, took it into their heads that, if technical classes were opened in connection with the public schools, the youth of the city, now idle per force, would flock into them of their own accord, thus putting a voluntary end to larrikinism, and vastly increasing the sum of knowledge possessed by the human race in general. Hopeful, and somewhat simple people at Auckland, however, it seems, have been disappointed. The fount of learning poured forth its streams in vain. Ingenuous youth avoided it aa if it were the germs of some infectious disease it were giving out. The classes were opened, and proved a failure, and have been done away with. The correspondent from whom we quote— or borrow — plaintively complains that a glove fight proved a greater attraction, and the corners of the street a more delightful resort. Education , in a word, by fancy means has proved in Auckland, as it must prove elsewhere, a vain attempt, and the rising generation in Auckland have shown themselves to be what they are in all other places — prone to evil from their birth, and not rushing pell-mell and all uninfluenced to avail themselves of every means of improvement placed within their reach. The technical classes at Auckland have but shared, for instance, the fate of the religious classes held in many places, of which at one time we heard a good deal, but of which we now hear no more. Bring up a child in the way he should go, as authority directs, but do not expect him when, in a great degree, he has been engaged in bringing himself up to enter also of his own accord upon the right path. What is there, indeed, in the present system of education that should incline our boys and girls to give up tbe glove fight or the lounge at the street corner, or whatever equivalent may suit their tastes, for a course of self-improvement and a pursuit of something better ? All the instruction they have obtained has been obtained by them in schools where an effectual moral training was an impossibility, and where no incentive to a higher state of things meed be looked for. We have just heard of what the goal is to which a life given up to secular studies alone must lead. In the persou of a man who represents the highest product of such studies, and in whom we see their effects most favourably illustrated, we have a warning that should serve a& a deterrent to & U who

are not malevolently bent on the destruction of the race. Professor Huxley, to whose explanation in the Nineteenth Century of his state of mind we allude, may with comparative safety to himself and others inhabit, as he says he does, the depths of a wild and tangled forest ; but what must be the results to tbe world when undisciplined masses, having no desire beyond the pleasures of the moment, find themselves in a situation equivalent, according to their kind ? With the heavens of brass above them, and showing no hope beyond, what can we expect from those whose natural tastes lead them to the glove fight or the corner of the street ? The experiment made at Auckland was a foolish one, one that it might easily have been foreseen must end in failure. It had no grounds to stand upon, no material to work upon. No preparation had been made by which it could possibly prove successful. And all the nostrums we find proposed to make up for the shortcomings of secularism, all the fancy means devised to perfect what it has not so much as commenced, must in like manner prove futile at the best. It is said that there is no royal road to learning. Neither is there an easy short-cut to moral excellence. But the way must be short and broad and smooth that should lead the mind direct from the untrammelled pursuit of its own mcli nations to a state of self-control, and the pursuit of a high ideal. The way, nevertheless, is narrow and difficult, and, as this failure in Auckland may serve in some degree to point out, secularism has no part in it.

Tub amounts forwarded to this office daring the week in aid of the Parnell Defence Fund are as follows :— For transmission to Mr. J. B. Callan, hon. treasurer of the Dunedin collection, Roxburgh, £13 16s 6d ; Winton, £16 4s. For transmission direct to Dublin, Hakateramea, £14 1 5s.

The Irish World (New York) in its issues of February 23 and March 2, comments as follows on Le Caron's career :— " As England's spy he took the perjured oath of allegiance to America. Again he committed perjury in joining the army in order to betray the national cause ; and it is a noteworthy fact that the military body of which he was a member mutinied in the field and in face of the enemy. He Joined the Fenians to betray them ; he helped to get up the invasion against Canada to betray his associates ; he joined the grand army, the Land League, the National League, the Clan-n«-Gael, all for the same, purpose of betrayal. But Le Caron seems to have not oonfined his operations to schemes against Irish and Americanlnationality. He is also found to have been conspiring to orge to their destruction the wage-workers of the country who were agitating for better terms of employment. During the|South-westßrn railroadjstrike of three years ago General Master Workman Powderly received a letter from the English secret agent in which he urged the wholesale blowing up of railroad property by the men on strike and agreed to furnish them with explosives for the work of destruction. Mr/Powderly declined to be drawn into the trap, but the Haymarket massacre and the riots precipitated elsewhere about that time would seem to indicate that Le Caron was more successful with the Anarchists than with the Irish American and other workmen who heeded Mr. Powderly 's warning to beware of all who tried to tempt them to acts of violence and crime. What must be the verdict of the world upon the Government that employs such traffickers in blood as the instruments in their policy of crushing out the liberties of the people of Ireland and traducing the characters of her patriots and statesmen 1 Could such infamy forever triumph, then truly civilisation must be a farce and all history a fable without a moral. . . . In commenting last week on Le Caron's career in this country we stated that these English spies were a standing danger to any community upon which they inflicted their presence. When we wroU these words we wcre^not aware that Le Caron, besides being a spy in the Union army and an inßtigator to acts of violence daring the great railroad strike of three years ago, was also an expert grave robber. Investigations set on foot in Detroit disclose the fact that the London Turn a' trump witness was for years engaged in the work of desecrating the sanctity of the grave. Some fifteen years ago he was in Detroit for some time, ostensibly as a medical student and a practitioner of medicine. All this time, however, he was playing a double rok; as he did whilst he kept up his connection with Irish organisations. Whilst the general public knew Le Caron as a mcdi. cal student and. ,'afterwards as a doctor the assistants of the demonstrators of anatomy of the medical colleges were aware that all this time he was engaged in the nefarious business of grave robbing. His field of operations embraced the cemeteries in the neighbourhood of Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Occasionally he extended his nefarious work to other parts of the country. During one of these grave-robbing excursions he is said to have stolen the body of General Harrison's father, which was afterwards by the merest chance die. covered in a medical college."

Wiv have to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of another number of the Whitehall, Review. We are always pleased to see this publication, as it enlarges our sphere of experience, and makes us acquainted with the tone of circles concerning which otherwise we must remain in complete ignorance. The Whiteliall Review, ■we know, although it has now no connection whatever with the trade of the egg-merchant, has succeeded to the patronage accorded to the weekly that was so connected, and circulates widely among the areas of fashionable London. Whoever, therefore, has the advantage of reading the Whitehall Reekie may reckon that he is as highly privileged as if he had the advantage of personally attending a "swarry " in Mayf&ir. (> ' I tell you what my opinion of you is, Harris,' eaid Mr. Tuckle, with a most impressive air, ' you're a wulgar beast.' . . . 'We consider you an inattentive re«kel,' said tbc gentleman in the orange plush. 'And a low thief,' added the gentleman ia the greenfoil smalls. 'And an unreclaimable blaygaird,' added the gentleman in purple." High life below stairs, then, we perceive, is still the same, and we never should have known that had we not the advantage of seeing how the Whitehall Review deals with the Irish party. We are always pleased, then, to receive a number of this aristocratic weekly. Owing to pressure on our pace we are obliged to hold over several items to next week— including a report of a meeting at Wan« ganui in aid of the Parnell Defence Fund.

The British and Colonial Assurance Company offers terms »hat should meet the most exacting rrquirements. No one should run tbc risk of leaving his life or property uuiosurcd when such facilities are placed within, his reach,