A BREAKDOWN IN VICTORIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 20, 3 March 1893, Page 7

A BREAKDOWN IN VICTORIA.

(Jiarricr Miner, February 9.)

Mb J. L. Pubtbs, Q.C., speaking in Melbourne on Tuesday night, expressed what is growing to be the prevalent idea, that the State education system ought to be curtailed. This ides, it is hardly necessary to Bay, has its chief stronghold in the reactionary and Tory camp ; and so rapidly is it spreading that something will have to be done to meet it. The anti-radical and non-progressive party — the party that openly avows that the ma sea are learning to think too much and to be therefore discontented to be mere " hewers of wood and drawers of water " — appreciate now that they made a huge mistake when they did not offer very determined opposition to compulsory and, in some colonies, free education. And they are beginning to show that, even now, they may attempt to reverse the very powerful engine of progress, appealing to the great straits to which colonial Treasurers are put, and to the heavy burden of taxation which it is necessary that the people should bear in order to meet current expenditure. We onght to know by this time that the reactionaries will not hesitate to attack and even practically demolish the State system of education, their successes have so emboldened them. Nor do they alone raise the cry against the State edncation system.

Many Liberals and progressives join with them in declaring tbat we have gorje too far. The danger is that, unless it be admitted that we have done so, we shall lose far more than we ought to do ; that, no* lets we consent to a modification of the system, we shall loie almost the whole system, aod with it tbe enlightening influences by which it is accompanied. We mast not resist tbe demand for modification until it becomes a demand for practical extinction ; and, though we may know that what the reactionaries and the Tories really want is abolition, it is wiser to take them at their word aod content to modification. And, after all, would we really lose anything if this modification, this pruning, took place f The whose question is : Have tbe State schools exceeded their proper functions ? If they have, it would be folly not to acknowledge the fact. We believe that they have. It is the duty of the Stats to teach and to set that the children are taught ; but the present bias is towards attempting to teach them fa' too many things. One of the professedly Liberal members of tbe Legislative Council, and indeed one of the most Liberal members of that body, declared the other day that it was time we went back to tbe three R's. That, however, would be going too far in the other direction ; and it is to be feared tbat sweeping proposals of the kind are made only because a large proportion of the people seem very much averse to any moderately radical abbreviation of the list of sub jects taught Poverty, it is true, should be no bar to a youth attaining the highest places, ci her in tbe professions or in the State ; but it does seem quite unnecessary that the State should bear the expense of teaching children a mv titude of subjects for which nineteentwentieths of them will have no use whatever in after-life. We are continually hearing young people declare how much they have firgotten since they left school ; and therein we have a pretty true indication of how much they were taught that they never need have ,een taught ; for it may be accepted as tolerably correct that we altogether forget only what we do not find it necessary or convenient to remember. Of course we were taught a great deal more than we learned. Tbe great defect, indeed, with the systems in vogue, not only at the State schools, but at many of the private schools, is that children are taught fact* without being induced to think, to reason ; and the knowledge of facts alone is not good. Only comparatively few of the facts learned parrot-fashion are retained in the mind ; yet, with the present over-burdened school programme, combined with the necessarily large number of children in each class, little more than this parrot-fashion learning is possible Bather than oppose any change, therefore, though the demand for it comes from a quarter whose actions are naturally suspected by the masses, the latter should really approve it.

There are plenty of pleasant atories of Buskin's generosity in Mn Thackeray Ritchie's just-publinhed reminiscences— generosity sometimes, it should be added, rather fi fully refused, bat usually extended with unquestioning hand, A man who bad grosaly lied and cheated at Braotwood — Ruskin'a residence in the lake conntry for years — was paid his wages by Buskin " because ha c mid not giro bim a character, and could not let him and his children starve." Mrs Ritchie tells a legend about Buskin which begins with a dream, in which Buskin dreamt himself a Fraociscan friar. When he was at Borne there was a beggar on the steps of the Pincio who begged of Mr Ruikin every day as he passed, and who always received something. On one occasion the grateful begar suddenly caught the outstretched hand and kissed it. Mr Ruskin stopped short, drew his hand hastily away, and th'-n, with a sudd n impulse, beudins? forward, kissed the baggar's cheek. The next day the man came to Mr Ra-kin's lodging to fi\id him, bringing a gift, which he offered with tears in bis eyes. It wai a relic, he said, a shred of brown cloth which had once forme I part of the robe of tit Francis Mr Ruakin remembered his dream when the poor b»ggar brought forth his relic, and thance came his pilgrimage to the Convent of St Francis of Asaisi, where be beheld those frescoef bj Giotto which seemed to bim more lovely than anything Tintoret biranelf had ever produced. " I personally should like to believe that the mendicant was himself St Fiancis appearing in tha garb of a bepgar to his great disciple, to whom also has been granted the gift of interpreting the voices of nature,"