11l Fares the Land

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 21, 23 May 1907, Page 22

11l Fares the Land

The dry rot has set its sign-manual upon the public schools. The official returns furnished, for instance, by the Otago Education Board make rather melancholy reading. The abstract of attendance at the public schools under the jurisdiction of the Board is summarised as follows in the ' Otago Daily Times ' of May 18 :— ' In 100(5 there were 229 schools in the district, with 571 teachers, 4333 pupils attending in the Dunedin district, and 19,957 in other schools. The average daily attendance for the year was 17,088. The attendance at the close of the year was 15,995. In 1905 the attendance at the close of the year was 19,206, in 1904 it was 19,372, in 1903, 19,504, and in 1902, 20,047. As a mat?ter of fact, the figures for 1906 are the lowest since 1879, when the attendance at the close of the year was 17,784. High-water mark was reached in 1890 with an. attendance of 22,782, but from 1886 to 1896 the attendance was always over 22,000. The totals have been steadily falling since 1896, with the exception of 1902, and last year's attendance at the close was alarmingly low. In 3 886 there were s'lo teachers in the services of the Board, and in 1906 there were ,571.' It looks as if some of our southern provinces are following "the path which has led to the decay and degeneracy of the once virile, stock of the New England Puritans. ' 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.' Israel of old was scourged full many . a time for worshipping false gods and following the abominations of the heathen. And national disaster will automatically be the fate of peoples that defy God-given laws -and~ God-ordained duties, and for the cult of the human babe substitute the worship of the bull-pup and the canary.