THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1901. THE GODLESS INSTRUCTION FAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 40, 3 October 1901, Page 17

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1901. THE GODLESS INSTRUCTION FAD.

fASHION is not merely a matter of skirts and pantaloons, wall-papers, stucco, old Nankin, and esthetic attitudinising over the curve and color of a tiger-lily. It dominates all along the line of our social life ; but if also rules, although to a less marked eifent, in the political Cabinet as well as in the lady's boudoir. It gives to dames and cavaliers a new bonntt or boot-lace for every season ; it gives to politics a new idol for every generation. Yesterday it was ' the prison theory,' or 'the commercial theory '; to-day it is the godless instruction fad. And like many another foolish fashion both in politics and in dress, this has come to us from Paris — a resuscitated idea that l came in,' very appropriately, amidst the wild orgies of the French Revolution. In these\en colonies of Australasia the fad has been in operation for a

comparatively short period, and adverse criticism of it is resented by its supporters as an outrage against the Secularist holy of holies. In the United States the dissatisfaction with the system and its results is day by day finding strong expression from prominent clergymen, politicians, and educationists. The Lutherans have followed the example of their Catholic fellow-citizens, and at least one other Protestant denomination is preparing to go and do likewise.

In these colonies the system of training the child to the mental habit of doing without God during a great part of the most impressionable years of its life, is producing its natural and necessary results. We hear much about the loss of parental control, the loosening grasp of the Churches upon the hearts of the people, the systematic crimes which strike at the sanctity of family life and the vigor of the State, and the increase of divorce. ' The most appalling sign of these fair countries,' said Commandant Booth in Dunedin a few months ago, ' is, I am afraid I must say, the growing tendency towards immorality ' ; and to this statement he added another of even more distressing significance : that 'the tide of juvenile depravity is an appalling factor,' in the life of these young and otherwise favored nations. An even more alarming cry comes from the United States. A few weeks ago the Liverpool Post summed up as follows the position there : ' While the extraordinary prosperity and increase of wealth in the New World is causing so much envious comment, there is another side to the picture — the great increase of crime, which in New York causes the expenditure of more than £7,125,000 a year for the safeguarding of the population. During the past ten years, while the population has increased 35 per cent., felonies increased 103 per cent., burglaries 113 per cent., grand larceny 86 per cent., receiving stolen goods 257 per cent,, robbery 99 per cent., ana criminal assaults 200 per cent. On a basis of 685,000 families in the city, it thus costs roughly ten guineas a year to protect themselves against robbery and assault. The sum of £7,125,000 is made up of the amounts for the police department and criminal courts, the maintenance of criminals in prisons, the estimated value of lawyers' fees, the costs of safes, locks, revolvers, private detectives, watchmen, and anti-crime societies, and bo on. The Police Department of New York alone is responsible for an expenditure of over £2,400,000, and now the department is asking for 1000 more policemen, while it is pointed out that every new gaol and courthouse is larger than the last, and the appropriations for fighting crime are greater than before. The outlay made necessary by the criminal classes is on the above estimate three 'times that spent for education.'

Much of this increase of crime must, of course, be traced to causes that have no direct connection with the system ef public instruction in vogue in the United States. But, in the judgment of many educationists and others whom we have quoted fiom time to time, a considerable percentage of the criminality of the country must be laid at the door of ' the little red schoolhouse.' Among the many schemes that have been propounded for an improvement of the present condition of things is the plan of the President of the New Yoi'k City Board of Education for bringing all schools of every character under the control of the public school authorities. ' The plan,' says our valued American contemporary the Monitor, 'aims at incorporating private schools into the public school system, on lines already suggested by friends and champions of the Catholic parochial school. That is to say, that such schools shall become part of the State educational system on condition that those in charge conform to the rules and regulations of the Board of Education, have the teachers pass the examinations which the regular public school teachers pass, and render themselves otherwise amenable to the department's regimen. On their face, these stipulations appear to substantially agree with those laid down as a basis of consolidation by intelligent advocates of a modified State school scheme to embrace the best features of the denominational system in successful operation in England, Canada, and elsewhere.' *

'It is hardly to be expected,' continues our esteemed San Francisco contemporary, ' that the project roughly outlined above will find easy sailing at the start. As a matter

of fact, the author of the movement fully realises that he will have to stand some hard knocks from various sources. He has counted the cost, but has abiding faith that the justice, feasibility, and utility of such a scheme as he proproposes, will lead to its ultimate adoption, in some shape, as an easy and practical solution of a difficult problem. It is something, at any rate, that the idea is thus formulated and set forth for pubiic consideration by one conspicuously identified with public school management in the national metropolis. It is educational in that sense and to this extent, and marks an important step in the direction of final adjustment of the vexed kl school question " on right lines, in a manner fair and satisfactory to the reasonable views of all classes of citizens and taxpayers.'

A curious evidence of the influence of religious teachers, even under the restrictions of the public school, comes to us from Jackson (Nebraska) and, in this connection is well deserving of quotation. 'At the annual school election in this district last Monday,' says the Jackson Criterion in a recent issue, ' the meeting recommended the hiring of the same teachers [the Dominican nuns] for the coming year at an increase of a hundred dollars salary on the aggregate paid heretofore. This increase of salary was voted unanimously by the meeting in recognition of the valuable and excellent services rendered by the Sisters and the good results they have achieved in our public school during their management of it. It is conceded on all hands that no town anywhere has a better public school — a school where the pupils learn more and advance farther in their studies during the school year — than the Jackson public school.'