CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 253, 25 October 1893, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE CATHOLICS AND

EDUCATION.

(To the Editor.)

Sm,—l reget that unavoidable absence in the country has prevented me from replying sooner to certain statements contained in your editorial note in Monday's Stab, and as there appears to be nolens volens an evasion on your part of the real question at issue as between the Catholics and the Government of New Zealand—a fact to which 1 exclusively restricted my attention in my previous letters — perhaps you will allow me to specify as briefly aa possible the real position of affaire. 1. The question is not whether the Catholic schools in England do or do not receive the same amount of public monies as the Board schools bub whether they (Catholic schools) receive any at all from that source. 2. That in as far as the English Education Act is national and general instead of particular and local, the Catholic schools are treated in precisely the same manner and receive the same equivalent per caput as the Board schools, i.e. that is from the national exchequer, which source of revenue proceeds on the inexpugnable principle of (a) an inspectorial examination, (6) the existence of the conscience clause applying to nonCatholic pupils attending said schools. 3. That whereas the mere circumstance of the Government in England having allowed Board schools in that country to-partici-pate in moneys raised from local taxation, which privilege is not shared by voluntary schools, does nob alter the fact the denominational schools in England are materially assisted and recognised by the Government —quite as much so, indeed, so far as indirecb taxation is concerned, as the Board schools, yet in New Zealand, whose Board schools receive all the revenues from the Consolidated Fund (except the moieties allocated to Provincial Boards out of education reserves), which is raised wholly by means of indirect or general taxation, the Catholics receive nob a penny for their schools. 4. That the fact that the English Hoard schools participating in a rating power vested in local Boards, in addition to the advantages which they share in common with voluntary schools from the Consolidated Fund, is due to_ the circumstance of the Act having been in the nature of a compromise between the varied differential elements in English politics, as e.ff., although the members in the English Parliament who had voted for the measure represented really the principles and interests of the voluntary schools, yet in deference to the professed conscientious grievances of a respectable minority, they (the majority in question) passed a measure which conferred greater monetary advantages upon the schools specially represented by the minority, than upon those schools represented by the greater number of members on both sides of the House. 5. That the conducb of the New Zealand Government, which rides rough shod over all the conscientious convictions of Catholics, is widely contrasted with the action of the English Government towards the minority in the State, in whoso special interests a local rating power was vested in district Boards, in addition to the revenue which they derived from the Consolidated Fund. 6. That even if Catholics admit the accuracy of your statements aa to the dissatisfaction of the authorities of the voluntary schools in England with the one-sided enactment contained in the Act, conferring special advantage? upon the rated schools, to the exclusion of the rivals, that is no reason why the New Zealand Catholics should be treated in a moßb unjust and scurvy manner by the Government in the matter of their claims for their share of the capitation grant. 7. That the fact of the Royal Commission mentioned by you whose report affirmed the urinciple of the inequitable aspect of the Act in the direction specified shows very cogently the trend of educated public opinion in England with respect to that question, while (a) the reasons of that report having up to now been practically in abeyance, are not those stated by you, viz., because of the preponderating hostility bo it on the part of the nation as a whole ; (b) for Lord Salisbury's Government, under whose auspices the Commission was appoin bod, was too busily engaeed in trying to bhwarb the movements of the Home Rule party to be able to give the serious attention to domestic matters ; and (c) Mr Gladstone's supporters were equally occupied in the effort to bring that cause (Home Rule) to a triumphant issue; (d) the dissentients referred to in the Commission, represent but a mere fraction of tho people, and therefore your taking their divergence of opinion as an illustration of English proclivities seems to me to be a very illogical method of reasoning. Having laid down in the above propositions the real state of the case, perhaps you will allow me ro fortify my position by facts connected with the administration of education in countries other than England. Let mo take first the Canadian School Act, 12 Viet., Chap. 50, section 18, which says, " Whereas, in any municipaity the regulations and arrangements made by the Commissioners of any school are nob agreeable to any number whatever of the inhabitants professing a roligious faith difierenb from that of the majority of the inhabitants of such municipality, the inhabitants so dissentient may collectively signify in writing such dissent to the Chairman of the Commissioners, and give in the names of three trustees chosen by them for three years, one retiring each year, which trustees shall have all the powers, and be subject to all the duties of School Commissioners for the purpose of establishing and managing dissentient schools. They become a corporation, may consbitute their own school districts, have the sole righb of fixing and collecting the assessments to be levied on the dissentient. Inhabitants are entitled to receive oub of the general school fund appropriated to the municipality a share bearing the same proportion to the whole sum allotted that the number of children attending such dissentient schools bears to the entire number of children attending school ab the same time in the municipality, and a further Bhare of the Building Fund." Matthew Arnold, in his "Schools and Universities of the Continent," preface 1868, Ba y ß : —"Mosb English Liberals seem persuaded that the elementary schools should be undenominational and their teaching secular, and that with a public elementary school it cannot well be otherwise. Let them clearly understand, that on the Continent generally, everywhere excepb in Holland, the public elementary school is denominational, and its teaching religious as well as secular."

The great philosopher, John Stuart Mill, in his well-known work styled " Liberty," says : "A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly Hka one another, and as the mould in which ib casts them is thab which pleases the predominant power in the Government, whether that be a monarch, a priesthood, an.ariatocracy, or tho majority of the existing generation, in proportion as ib is efficient and successful it establishes a despotism over the mind leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and constituted by the State should only exist, if it exists ab all, as one among many conflicting experiments carried on for the purpoee of example and stimulus to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence."

Robert Lowe, latterly known as Viscount Sherbrooke, one of the greatest educationists of modern times, who was facile princeps as fellow and tutor of his College ab Oxford, said : " I think wo have done wisely to contenb ourselves with two points, to assist the managers of

voluntary schools on condition onlythab they should submit to undenominational inspection and that) they should submit in all cases to a conscience clause."

Lord Selborne, when Sir Roundell Palmer, said, "You must nob seek to supplement them (denominational schools), by a system intended to sweep them away, or absorb them and swallow them up. For even if that were desired to be done, whab would be the immediate effect of your attempting to do it? Why you would throw the whole of that) powerful maas of zeal, and all the persons interested in those schools, into practicable antagonism to your system. Instead of getting cooperation and extension and a truly supplementary system, you would introduce an educational weapon with results which lam sanguine woulc^ never accomplish your object nor any other object that is really for the public good." W. E. Foster, in the same debate (see Hansard, Page 1,948), said, ••< Well, I find in existence a powerful social force depending very much on denominational zeal and ardour, and I am not saying anything against that zeal and ardour, proceeding as they do from men who have a faith which helps them in this world and tills them with hope in regard to the next. This is nob a feeling which I ought to despise, especially when I find it has induced many men to spend much time and money, and to lead self denying lives in order to promote that education for which we all care so much."

Now, let me quote one or two authorities in New Zealand. Mr Curtis, in the Education Bill debate, August 31sb, 1877, page 177 Hansard, volume 25, said: "The clause which I have drawn is founded on the system in operation in Noison, although it has been considerably modified in order to fall in with the other provisions of the Bill. It is to be operative whenever any twentyfive or more householders in any education district shall signify in writing to the Education Board of euch district their desire to be constituted into a separate body for educational purposes. It shall then be the duty of the Board to convene, a meeting of n'uch householders for the election of a School Committee in the manner provided in this Act, and it shall be lawful for the Board to grant the Committee so elected such aid in books, school apparatus and' money as the Board shall think expedient, or ac the option of the Committee such aid may be granted in money only, inclusive of the value of such books and school apparatus as would otherwise be supplied by the Board, provided always that every euch Committee shall provide a school house or school houses to the satisfaction of the Board, etc. In the town of Nelson there are schools of thirf kind which have been in operation under the present law for the past ten years. There are now 477 children on the rolls of these schools, and of that number more than one-half are Protestants. This arises from the fact that greater advantages are to be obtained in these schools than in the ordinary State schools. These schools have a better class of teachers, and in that respect they are superior to the ordinary public schools which come under the operation of the Act."

Mr Barffe in the same debate says, " 1 shall limit myself simply to the consideration of the Bill from what' is called tho Denominational point of view Ib appears to me that the House and the Government will make a great mistake if they pass the Bill in its present shape. I really think that we have no right whatever either as members ot this House or aa private individuals to attempt to stir up anything like strife among the people. Ab any rate we have no right to dp anything which will interfere with a man's religious convictions. A man's religious opinion is a matter between himself and his conscience, and bebween himself and his Maker. I beiieve, and as I have already said, that wo should be doing a great wrong if we pass the Bill in us present form merely in order to give aid solely to the schools conducted on the principles laid down in the Bill. It should be the object of legislators to heal differences, not to aggravate them. Were the Bill passed in its presenb fortn, ib would, as ifc were, make a breach between people of diflerenb denominations, and Catholic children attending • schools established under this measure would feel that they were in an entirely diflerenb position from the Protestant children."

The Hon. Mr Mermen, quoting Professor Blackie, the celebrated Greek scholar, who said, " The mote knowledge a man possesses without moral culture, the more accomplished a devil he is;" and Quizob, when Minister of Public Instruction in France in a circular to the teachers of that country said: "Among the objects of instruction, there is one which demands of me particular notice; or, rather, ib is bhe law itself, which, by placing it at the head of all others, has committed ib more especially to our zeal. I refer to moral and religious instruction. It is absolutely necessary that popular instrocbion should nob be confined to the development of the intelligence. Ib should embrace the whole soul; ib should awaken the conscience, which ought bo be elevated and strengthened according as the intelligence is developed. I shall (says the Hon. Mr Menzies) conclude these quotations with one from Principal Shairp, of St. Andrew's, who says, substantially, that "The highest/ exercieo of reason is nob the knowledge atrained by the intellect the training ot the logical faculty, but a joint acbion of the intellect, conscience, imagination, will—all our faculties, moral and intellectual—when we attempt to apprehend our rotations to God. If education has no religious element ib will fail to teach right principles. Religion does nob seek the aid of the State ; it is the State that seeks, and rightly seeks, bhe aid of religion, as the most effective agent tor the benefit of the people. It is the foundation of all liberty and morality and gives Becuriby to Governmenb because ib teaches men that there are higher ends in life than mere interest and expediency."

Mr DeLatour says (Hansard, vol. 25, page 20(^) : " Now, I Bay the Catholio3 prove their faith by their works, and we need not go out of this city to prove that. It does seem to me monstrous that because we are the majority wo should say to the Catholics of Wellington or of any other district: *Ib is quite superfluous to keep up your schools ; your objection to our system is absurd, and therefore we shall take your money to teach our children.' Ib is a monstrous thing. Do we suppose we are going to doge the schools in Wellington, the schools in Dunedin or tho schools in every district, and on the goldfields of Otago ? Some say, 'We will do it gradually; we will go on and they will come into our schoolrooms.' Sir, if the same pressure had been brought to bear on our forefathers as we are preparing to put on tho Uathclics now, it would have been a bad day for our cause. If the Minister of Justico will look at the statistics fairly he will find thab in many districts, especially in the country districts, the proportion of.Catholics to other denominations is very great indeed, and in some cases the Catholics are numerically 3fcronger than other denominations. Under this Bill you are actually taking money out of his pocket (Catholic) in that he pays taxes to the Consolidated Fund."

Vincent-Pyke, says Hansard, vol. 25 page 205 ■■ " I believe in whab is commonly termed 4 payment by results.' If what are termed private schools are up to the standard of efficiency prescribed by the State, I see no reason why we should nob give them the same advantages and privileges which are given to public schools. I soe a thousand reasons why the State should encourage them."

Captain Russell, page 208 of the same volume, says : '• As I' said before, I intend to support the amendment of the honorable member for Nelson city, because I am

averse to reducing everything in this country to one dead level." Mr O'Rorke tnow Sir G. M. O'Rorke), Hansard, vol. 25, page 238, says :—" I have looked into the matter, and I hold in my hand an Act passed in Canada fourteen yeara ago, which provides that 'Any number of persona not less than five (Mr. Curtis' proposal raises the number to twenty-five, which appears to me excessive), being heads of families and freeholders or householders, resident within any school section of any township, incorporated village or town, or within any ward of any city or town, and being Roman Catholics, may convene a public meeting of persons desiring to establish a separate school for Roman Catholics in such school section or ward, for the election of trustees for the management of the same.' Ab this meeting three persons resident in the locality are to be elected as trustees for the management of each separate school, and the trustees become ipso Jacto a body corporate. So highly was this Act prizad by Catholics and Protestants, that when the Confederation Ace was passed it was only submitted to the consideration of the Imperial Parliament on the express understanding that these rights should be protected. The United States Commissioner of Education says of the Canadian Act, in a report published ab Washington, in 1871, 'In Canada a wise feature of the law reconciles to a great extent sectarian antagonisms. When the school regulations are not agreeable to any portion whatever of the inhabitants professing a religious faith different from that of the majority, the dissentients may choose trustees, establish schools, and receive their proportion of the school fund. Ample provision is made for carrying out this portion of the law harmoniously and efficiently. As I have said, that 'system has been in vogue in Canada for fourteen years. It has removed all heartburnings, it has given satisfaction to all denominations, and I think it would be well it we copied that system and established it here. I am not aware what the exoteric doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church may be, but if I were to judge of that body by the exoteric efforts they make without any Government assistance to educate their children where I reside, I would say that they are deserving of all praise, and I think it would' become us who are of the dominant religion to deal generously and liberally with that body, if it were for nothing else but on account of the efforts which we see them daily making for promoting the education of their children. I think it is a matter worthy of regret that the clergy of the Church of England, the Church to which I belong, do not equally exert themselves in this matter. I regret very much to see the apathy and indifference with which they have abandoned one of their highest functions, because I contend that it is one of the highest functions of the clergy to attend to the religious education of the children of their flocks. In the province of Auckland thoy have been very apathetic. I think the General Synod of New Zealand, at their recent meeting in Nelson, came to a resolution to address themselves to this subject which they had abandoned ; but I have seen no ellort made by them to resume that high function. 1 believe myself that if denominational schools were encouraged, it would be a good thing for the colony, and it would be a very desirable thing to have a generous rivalry existing between denominational and State schools."

My next but last witness on this question shall be Mr Gladstone, who on page 277 English Hansard, vol. 202, says :—''The voluntary schools contain every variety of full denominational teaching ; they raise in the broadest form whatever controversy may be connected with the subject, and they raise controversy especially in connection with one portion of the community, whose case* is most difficult to deal with, whose case is also one which demands justice at our hands, and which cannot be overlooked—l moan the cage of the Roman Catholics, who may be said to form live per cent, of,the population. We ail along- held out, and I think in every scheme of education that haa been propounded it has been held out to the promoters of voluntary schools, that in their competition with rate schools they should receive some assistance towards lightening the burden of their expenditure. What we propose is this, that in lieu of the mode now inserted in the Bill of giving this augmentation from public sources to the means available for secular education in voluntary schools, the amount of that augmentation shall be drawn from the Exchequer instead of from the rates."

Permit me to remark fchafc whereas the cosb of education in Board schools in England is £2 4s 8d per child the same kind or quality of education in voluntary schools is £1 16s 4d per child. In London the cost per child is £3 in Board schools, which is only £2 4a in voluntary schools, which is a fourth leas. Then the attendance at voluntary schools all over England is 2,008,000 and at Board schools 886,000. thus showing that the voluntary schools have nearly three times as many children in actual school attendance as the Board schools and the article costs the country about one-fifth less money. Surely, sir, that is an argument that ought to commend itself ever to the N6W Zealand democracy. Taking NewZealand'sstatiatics as one's basis, I find that in 18S0 the number of public schools in this colony was 1,208, and of private schools 300 ; in 1891 14,142 pupils attended private schools in New Zealand, and of that number 10,144 attended Roman Catholic schools. In the aame year 96.264 attended the public schools, at a cosb to the Government of £408,983 0s 3d. From education reserves, £34,741 lls Id ; local sources, £2,578 14s 10, showing a total revenue of £446,803 6s 2d, besides a Bum of £42,150 17s 4d expended in school buildings.

Surely, sir, the Catholics in New Zealand have a right in law and equity to at least the sum of £50.000 per annum from the public funds considering, as I have shown above, that almost in every civilised country on the globe their co-religionists share in proportion to their numbers and tax paying obligations in the national revenue for school purposes. You say in your editorial note "In England, as we have shown they do nofc receive from the funds (viz voluntary Bchools) raised by taxation an amount equivalent to that paid to the Board schools." Yet, as I have proved above (and that is the real point at issue in New Zealand, for in this country there is no such thing aa direct or local taxation as in England, superadded to the educational means of raising the school revenue), the voluntary Rchools in England share equally and alike in the source of income derived from the Consolidated Fund with, their rivals, the Board schools, and a most logical corollary from that fact is that tho Catholics in New Zealand should be placed relatively in the same position, as Board schools to the New Zealand Coneolidated Fund, and permit me to say that is a phase of the question which you have conveniently left oufc of sight in this discussion. Furthermore, the same or similar facts as to voluntary or private schools having existed in vigour in England at the time the Act of 18fO was passed, is applicable to the circumstances of education in this colony, for many private schools were in full swing at and even many years before 1877, when the present Act was initiated, so that your giving that as a reason for ignoring Catholic claims in New Zealand is utterly absurd, and is contradicted by the facts of the case. One word more and I have done. Great authorities such as Stuart Mill/ Matthew Arnold, Professor Blackie, Principal Shairp, of St. Andrew's, and hosts of great Liberal leaders, euch as, Gladstone, the late W. E. Forster, Robert Lowe, Lord Selborne, besides notable personages in New Zealand, such as Sir

' Maurice O'Rorke, Captain Ruesell, Vincent Pyke, Oswald Curtis, etc., as adduced by me above, have disproved in the strongest terms, either explicitly or implicity, the character of the State education as in New Zealand and the mean and miserable treat* ment meted out by the Government to the Catholics of this colony. Are Catholics to be told that the people of this country are wiser and more sapient in their statesmanship than all peoples in Europe, save Holland, or than such great statesmen and' men of highest knowledge and genius as Gladstone and others that I have named, or even than the great statesman, the late Sir John A. Macdonald, and the Hon. Mr Mackenzie, etc., who, in the great Dominion of Canada inaugurated a system of education that has nob only allayed all sectarian animosities, but has ever evoked expressions of unstinted admiration from such a competent critic as the U.S. Commissioner of Education ?

Is it to be published by you as a cardinal article of Liberal faith that, notwithstanding those cogent forces arrayed against the action of the New Zealand Government in ita system of education, tho people of this country are to despise the highest and best precedents and the sublimesb arguments when they militate against their actions. Trusting you will do the Catholics the kind favour of allowing this statement of their case to appear in an early issue of the Stab, —lam, etc., Historicus. [This letter is referred to in our leading columns to-night.—Ed. E.S.]