Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/265

 "But does it not ensure greater economy in working, and greater efficiency, and better results to have a compulsory State system? Would not the latitude you advocate tend to the multiplication of sectarian and denominational schools?"

"What has that to do with the justice of the case? But I do not think it would. The Free Church of Scotland had hundreds of schools, and she was very glad, indeed, to hand them over to the school boards. They had always been a heavy burden, the bearing of which had fallen almost exclusively on the minister, who had already too much to attend to, if he was really to carry on his own peculiar pastoral work, and attend to his public ministrations with any degree of acceptance and success. The consequences have been all for good, in the case of the Free Church of Scotland, and I do not think that, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, and possibly a section of the Anglican, any movement in the direction of having schools separate from the State schools will ever be made here."

"But would not the secularists object?"

"What matter if they did? I do not think that secularism is so strong as some people would like to make out. There is a distinct reaction against it here in this community." (We were speaking of Dunedin at the time.) "The feeling that I am glad to say is gaining strength amongst us is, that the Bible should be read in all the public schools. I would apply the principle of