The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1908. COLONIAL "PAGANISM."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 149, 24 June 1908, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1908. COLONIAL "PAGANISM."

Few the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Our readers "will find in another column of this issue a communication from our London correspondent, under the title, "Muck-rake Imperialism," on which we propose to make a few comments. The letter refers to a sermon preached recently by Bishop Xeligan at Oxford University, in which he made certain statements that appear to us to amount to a libel on colonial life and society, and ■this seems to us so serious a matter that we feel compelled to make some attempt at a reply. This is not the first time during his stay in England Bishop Neligan has thought it necessary to defame New Zealand by assuring an English audience that a considerable number of the people of this country are pagains. On the first occasion, however, the Biehop was preaching in his own old church, and his statements, however objectionable they may have been, took rather i«e iona of a private expression of opinion to his parishioners. But now that Bishop Neligan ha 3 returned to the charge, and has in the most public way reiterated his offensive and unjust accusations, we feel that it is the duty of any and every self-respecting organ of public opinion in this country to answer them. A glance at our summary of the Bishop's Oxford sermon will show that as before, his chief theme is the "Paganism" of New Zealand, and his explanation of our benighted and Godless state is the "secularism," which is in his eyes the worst feature of our educational system. Without attempting to impute motives to the Bishop, we venture to suggest an explanation for his persistent efforts to find a connection between secularism and "paganism" just now. Everybody knows that the Anglican Church at Home is strongly opposed to the liberal Education Bill, which would abolish sectarian tests, and would ensure popular control of all sums raised by taxation for educational purposes. Bishop Neligan not unnaturally takes the strictly Anglican view of the situation, and he is pardonably anxious to find arguments to support his case. Now, the extreme Anglicans are by no means prepared to admit that the amount of religious instruction provided, as preecribed in the bill, by the varioue eeots independently of each , other and of the ordinary educational course would meet their requirements; in fact, at least one Anglican Bishop had publicly said that he "would rather see the educational system secularised than allow school children to b.a taught any creed, but that of the Established Church. To men of this type, secularism and Dissent or Nonconformity seem almost equally danger-oue;-and it is in this way that the Anglican party, itself intensely sectarian, which opposes the Education Bill, has come -to regard the measure as tainted with the evil of secularism. A little reflection upon these interesting facts may help to suggest to our readers that Bishop Neligan's fierce denunciation of colonial secularism, and iLs supposed results may not be wholly unconnected "with hie prejudices as to the status and management of voluntary schools at Homo. But let its now take the charges brought by Bishop Neligan against our education system, and consider how they can bo met. The Bishop has told the people of England, as loudly as he can, that we are " a nation partly pagan," and that the parents of to-day in New Zealand have been " brought up to bolieye

that God] is en 'extra:'" Without-some specific indication pf the ground for this astonishing charge we find some difficulty in handling it." Does Bishop Neligan, really imagine that 7 his slight personal knowledge of this country and its people would justify such a statement? So far as conformity to the outward decencies of life, observance of Sunday and attendance at church is concerned, we believe that our colonial-towns can safely'stand comparison witn, any centres of population at Home. As to the country districts, where the faeiilties for religious teaching and public worship are certainly deficient, we believe that tnere is an even more genuine and unobtrusive piety, a more sincere reverence ior tin; moral purposes and responsibilities of life than is to be discovered in the towns; and Bishop Neligan's comparative ignorance of colonial life and character ig in this respect perhaps his best excuse for his unfortunate misstatements. As to the moral or religious tome of colonial communities —does Bishop Neligan expect us to believe that we have in this country any class so hopelessly ignorant of religious truths, so wholly untouched by any sense of moral responsibility, as the "submerged tenth" of the masses at Home? Or that we have here any section of society so utterly abandoned to the pursuit of pleasure and so regardless of the claims of public or private religion as the "idle rich" of Englamd? For anyone who knows these colonies intimately, to ask these questions is to find a sufficient answer to Bishop Neligan's allegations. But let us come a little closer to the point of the Bishop's charges, by considering the relation that exists between our "godless" primary school system and the recognised public means of religious instruction. If Bishop Neligan is correct in his assertion that we are largely pagan, and that our secular education system is to blame for it, an outsider would naturally bo inclined to assume that our public school children are deterred by their secular training from attending Sunday schools. But what arc the facts of the case? Our j last census returns show that about 133,000 children were in attendance at our primary schools In 1901, and that about 118,400 children were then scholars in our Sunday schools. As we can hardly assume that we have here two separate lots of children, one going to school on Sundays and the other on week days, this means that about 89 per cent of the "pagan" girls and boys brought up in our "godless" primary schools also get the benefit of religious instruction on Sundays. Surely it follows, in tho first place, that our secular system of education does not prevent most children fiom receiving religious instruction, and, in the second, that if they ultimately turn out "pagans" the Sunday schools and the churches are quite as much in fault as the primary schools. But let us compare these figures with the corresponding returns for England, where education is not secular, and where the great majority of schools have long been under the control of the Anglican Church. In 1902-3, in England the total number of day scholars was about 6.800,000, of whom 3,700,000 attended the "voluntary" or Church schools, and 3,100,000 the Board schools. The attendance at Sunday schools at the same period was about 6,100,000, which works out at a fraction under 90 per cent, or less than one per cent more than the New Zealand average. Now, considering that more than one-half the day school children at Home were then under the direct control of an avowedly religious education system, and that they have not to encounter the difficulties arising from the scattered nature of settlement in this country, it seems to us that this comparison works out strongly in favour of Secularism. Certainly there is nothing in these figures to justify Bishop Neligan's assumption that the effect of secularism is to turn children into pagans; and we repeat, that if 89 per cent of our children grow up "godless" while attending Sunday school, our churches rather than our education system must be to blame. It is, as we have said, most unfortun ate that statements tending to create such a wrong conception of the people of New Zealand, should go forth to the world stamped with the authority of one who claims to speak from personal experience of colonial life, and we can only hope that they will not produce any strong impression upon public opinion about the colonies at Home. As to ourselvos, we iaa.y, of course, regard Bishop Neligan's denunciations as a sign of the persistent -activity of that small but active section which still demands the abolition of secularism here. This country will never retract its decision in favour of secularism for the good and sufficient reason that it has proved by its own bitter experience that there is no alternative to secularism but sectarianism, with all its paralysing and demoralising rivalry- and strife. Nor is England's experience in this respect different from our own, and it is because sectarian jealousies have made the old system impossible there that the drift is so steadily toward secularism to-day. Bishop Neb'gaix will jgaan nothing either for Anglican education at Home or for the Bible in-schobls party here by denouncing us as "pagans"; but we cannot close without reiterating our regret that a man of the Bishop's high official status should make use of his exceptional advantages to speak in such disparaging terms of the country which he has made his home before he has lived here long enough to understand our institutions or follow our past political and social history or appreciate either the reasons that led up to our secular education system or the eJTeets that it has produced.