SIR ROBERT STOUT'S STATISTICS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 24, 1 April 1892, Page 19

SIR ROBERT STOUT'S STATISTICS.

TO THE EBITOB N Z, TABLET. Sia, — Sir Robert Stout has written much lately about education and crime. I enclose two extracts, which you will kindly publish for his [ consideration. The first is from a lecture recently delivered in the Princeton Protestaut Theological Seminary ; the second from thig moruiog's (Wednesday's) Otago Daily Times. Prcfessnr li)bert Ellis Thompson, S I. D., University of Pennsylvania, in one of his lectures on the Divine order of society, and, speaking of America, s^js :— " Secular education ia a cramped, maimed, paleie 1 education. . . . The secularisation of instruction in the public schools is to cut ofi the children of the nation from contuct wish ti>e de?p"3t fprmgs of its moral and intellectual Inc. It is to is )Ute all scu nces from the fundamental science which gives them unity aad perennial interest — the knowledge of God. It is to rob history of its significance as ihe Divine education of the race and to re luce it perilously near to Schopsnhauer's estimate, that it had no more meaning thau the wrangling and strife of the wild beasts of the forest. It is to deprive ethical teaching of the oaly basis which ein make its precepts pjw>'if al for the control of conduct. It is to depiive national order of the supreme sanction which 'nves's it with the .tignity of D.vine authority." Sir Kobert Stout maint .in* that crimmalty has decreased in New Z j aland since the seculir system was inaugurated. Why, then, the following local in the Otago Daily Times :— "The Commissioner of Police has address >d the followiug memo, to < fficera ia charge of distiicts:— 'The attentiou o£ the Hoa. the Defence Minister has been lately called to toe increase of l.unkiai^m m the various towns in the Colony, and the lneffiii'ncy of thi police iq dealing with this nuisince. in mi'iy to.vns groups of lids are permitted to collect and loiter about street ornerd.suitting on ladies' dresses, making use of disgus'ing and profaue laaguage, and even iusultlng pas-ers-by, whilst o herj amuse themselves by breaking lamps, unhanging gates, and various other objectionable prac ices. The commissioner, therefore, directs officers in charga of districts to taka sucti steps as they may deem necessary to vigorously supress theaj objectionable aud annoying habits, aid he ia assured they will receive every assistance fiom all ieipt ciable citizens in carrying oofu f this duty.' "