REPORT ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 32, 8 May 1891, Page 17

REPORT ON EDUCATION.

N another column will be found a letter from an esteemed correspondent who signs himself "M.A." His object in writing to us is, no doubt, to address the public through us, and probably to elicit our own opinion in reference to the results of our public schools. As we think he has a right to a place in our columns, and that the subject to which he calls attention is for the public a most important one, we readily give insertion to his communication. But as to our opinion : We fancy no one is now ignorant of what that is. We are opposed to the present system of public schools, because it is godless, and, secondly, because it is intensely and tyrannically unjust. It banishes religion and Christ from the school rooms, and even, the school* books ; and plunders the Catholics of the country in ord^r to make it most difficult for them to give an education to their children. The main principle of this Bystem is, a godless education, free, gratis, for all who will consent to be educated godlessly, or can be compelled to accept godless education, and ignorance for all who refuse to subject themselves to godless teaching. It is a misnomer to call it a system of education at all, for its essential principle is opposition to education, and penalties for all who work and labour for real education. And yet on this system for promoting ignorance of that which it is most necessary for man to know, this country, or rather its Government and Pailiament, squanders between five and seven hundred thousand a year. And what is the country getting over and above godlessness for this enermous expenditure ? Let the report signed by the three school inspectors of Otago answer. As our correspondent " M.A." points out, the children of the Sixth Standard are unable to read decently, and we ourselves can testify that some who have passed the Sixth Standard are unable to spell some words of one syllable correctly. On the efficiency or inefficiency of the teaching in the public schools we have never expended much thought. Kxcept as one of the public compelled by a tyrannical law to support them, we have no interest in them ; and we have always thought that it is not the teaching is to blame, so much as the system for which the teachers are not responsible, and the crass neglect of parents, who, being to a large extent uneducated themselves, fail to help the teachers, and who are under the impression that the mere fact of their children attending a school is in itself quite enough to make them scholars ; if only the teachers were qualified and industrious. There are people who foolishly imagine that all children are equally capable of acquiring learning, and equally desirous of doing so. Had the parents of these children sufficient experience of schools and the various abilities of children, they would not entertain such silly ideas ; nor would they give expression so glibly to censures on what they imagine are the shortcomings of teachers. People of experience and education know that a knowledge of what is required even by the Sixth Standard cannot be acquired without hard woik and earnest application on the part of pupils. Though, consequently, the state of things revealed by the Report to which "M.A." calls attention is deplorable, it would be unjust, with our preecnt information, to throw blame on the

teaching. We are disposed rather to cast censure on the pupils themselves and their parents. Here it is, we think, that the point to be blamed is to be found. We think the lot of the teacher is a hard one, when it is borne in mind that colonial youths are not much given to work or anxiety to subject themselves to that application and study both at home and in school which are absolutely necessary for the acquisition of even a little learning. Teaching may be the best possible, but it will be of no avail to the inattentive, the idle, or the stupid. Our quarrel, therefore, is not with the public school teachers, but with the system which pampers all godless Government schools, and endeavours to render all other schools impossible, and to extinguish all rivalry, and all competition, whose primary object is to lower all schooling to one low dead level of mediocrity and godlessness . Against this most injurious and unjust system we protest ; and we may be permitted to ask, How are the public satisfied with the result of their enormous and disproportionate expenditure on public schools ? Are they prepared to say they have got value for their money ? This is the important question for them.