THE NEED FOR ACTION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 47, 25 February 1911, Page 4

THE NEED FOR ACTION

The campaign of the Roman Catholicsi, against the Education Act is being prosecuted with such vigour that even tlioj •most confident supporter of the system.; which has now stood for more than, -thirty years should be fully alive to' the danger. The partisans of denomi-v nationalism have no hope whatever if, they are met with a determination, anything like proportionate to their o*m, energy, but apathy and over-confidence-may ruin the best of causes, and we 1 should be glad to see unmistakable evidence that tlie case for the defence of the people's -schools is not to be jeopardised in this way. The latest moveis reported from Auckland. Bishop, Cleary has issued a pastoral on the sub-, ject which is to be read iaall-the Romam Catholic Churches of his diocese to-mor-row, and he here repeats with his wellknown dialectical ability thb demand for* State-aid to the Roman -Catholic schools' ■which he had argued at considerable--length in a press interview a week . or < two ago. "We demand," says Bishop , Cleary, "a jusfc proportion of taxation. We ourselves pay for secular education. JThe results our schools achieve are 'testified by the State inspectors. . . . We at least require neither Stawj patronage nor State pay for our religious^ dogmas." The answer of the State is. that it has undertaken to provide secular education for tho children of every de- i nomination, and cannot provide for the religious teaching of any of them. The &tato has exhausted its duty when it j has provided for every child the opportunity of a secular' education at the .public cost. Religion it regards as beyond its province, and here it recognises no duty beyond that of a strict neutrality. For years the State has been urged by a combination of the chief Protestant sects to establish in the public schools c. course of what they regard as undcjiominational religious teaching, though it certainly could not be so accepted by Catholics. This demand has been resisted on the ground that it would be unjust to the Catholics, who ■are taxed for the support of the schools, and to whom the schools are at present open on the terms of perfect equality. The State ds bound' on the same principles to resist the demand which is now I urged from the other side. ! The answer of the Roman Catholics, of course, is that they do not take advantage of the secular education which the State provides, and that they provide for the .secular education of their own children, so that religious instruction may be given in the same institutions and by the same teachers. It is plainly a hards-hip that the, Roman Catholics should be driven by the value which they- set upon the blending of -religious and secular education to provide in theii own schools for the secular education which they are already taxed to supply in the. State schools. But the, hardship is not an injustice so long as the State puts everybody on an equal footing aud sanctions no teaching in its schools which violates anybody's rights of conscience. To put a Pro--testa«t text-book in the schools, as the State is still being urged to do, would bo to violate the principlo of -equality and the consciences of th& Roman Catholics. But there is no violation of either in the fact that the State j does not include everything in its curri- ; culum that the Roman Catholics desire. The conscience argument has really been made far too much of in this connection. As large numbers of Catholic children are already attending the State schools and) there is also a considerable proportion of Catholics among the teachers in; these schools, it is perfectly clear that there is not tti« insuperable objection on the score- of \vhich is-com-monly assumed in the denominational argument. It is not a conscientious objection to> the teaching thai the State .provides so much as a strong preference' for teaching that tho State does 1 not provide which constitutes the real basis of the- Roman Catholics' claim, and that, as we submit with confidence,- is something which the State -cannot take into consideration. The duty of the State is clear, and we are thankful that the C4overnment fully realises it. Mr. Fowlds- has put it beyond doubt that in the thoroughgoing declaration which ho made at Lynn a fortnight ago in favour of the law as it stands, he spoke for the Government, and not merely for the Minister of Education. "The policy of the Government," he now says, "is again&t any interference with the national system of free, secular, and compulsory education." The firmness of the Government on this vital .question atones for a multitude of wobblings on other matters that could be named.