Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 83

Introduction

page break

Introduction.

These pages are offered to the public,—

In the belief,—that, education without religion is a one-sided kind of education, one-sided in the wrong direction, and a kind that is scarcely worthy of the name of education,—that, infidelity is a deadly peril to the nation in this as in every age,—and, that without faith and love towards God, and His blessing upon our labours, all our schemes for intellectual advancement, or national prosperity, will be in vain, for "Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it."

In this belief, and in the hope that some plan may be adopted, either in accordance with the scheme suggested by the compiler of this work, or such as may be devised by the people of the Colony, for modifying the clause in the Education Act of 1877, which limits the Education to be given, to an entirely secular one,—the opinions of a Governor of New Zealand, and other legislators of this and other Colonies, of clergymen living in New Zealand, of the Press of this country, of those whose business it is to administer the existing Education Act and who are most intimately acquainted with its working, viz., Education Boards, Committees, and Inspectors, and of large numbers of the Parents themselves, are here brought together, as they have been variously publicly expressed during this year, together with the customs and statutes of our own country, of our Mother Country, of other Colonies and Continental Nations relating to Education.

The object of this pamphlet is not to pull down a system of Education which has been built up with so much care and thought page 6 in this country, but of improving that system by eliminating from it a blot which seems to be one of the most vital character. An abuse so great that whilst it remains unremoved it will undermine and destroy the effect and value of the Education to be given under the existing Act, a blot which it is believed is not in accordance with the mind of the people of New Zealand, and cannot be in accordance with the mind of God, viz., that all religious instruction shall be absolutely forbidden in the State Schools.