EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 89, 17 April 1911, Page 3

EDUCATION SYSTEM.

TO THE EDIXOa. / Sir, — (I.) In your issue of sth April you assert (1) that "religion has nob been banished by the State from the school-training of children" in New Zealand. To have even a conditional argumentative value, your aeeertion must suppose, that the ruling majorities found religion quite outside the ecliool system, and simply refrained from inviting it to "come in." But you well know that they found -eligion" in possession, as an intimate part of the school cystem, by legal right and old and accepted prescription. The ruling majority dispossessed religion, drove it out of the schools. They ejected it, Dy public a-ct — and this is the meaning of the term " banish," both in its personal and literal sense and in the figurative sense in which it is here correctly employed. They left the school system "" absolutely secular" (Bowen). "entirely secular" (Act of 1877)— in dictionary phrase, they entirely "stripped" or "threw off" from it " religion and religious teaching and influences." (2) The State (accord-t ing to you) merely " declines either to teach religion itself or to eubsidise the teaching of religion." As a matter of notorious fact-, it goes vastly further tha-n this. It makes it an offence against the law for any person whomsoever to "teach religion" to Christ's "little ones" during school hours — even to tell them that there is a Personal God Who sees and loves- and resvards and punishes. The Act of 1877 is, an a very real way. an " edict against religion " — in the school. It is for you, as the Christian champion of our secular system, to justify these things, if you can, on moral and educational principles which believing Christians can accept. The burden of proof is upon you. And unsupported assertion and denial are- not proof.- - * (II.) At last you have something to say in defence of the secular system, from the viewpoint of a " philosophy of life." This " philosophy " is a repeated quotation which (again without any reference) you attribute to Dr. Parker. But, (1) the extract is not at all a statement of a philosophy of life — that is, of a view of the origin, duties, and destiny of life. (2) I find the Parker extract in a much nior-e extended form, in a misleading and fiercely bitter attempted "defence" of our secular system, by a "Wellington professor. Leaving aside, for the present, the question of the textual a-nd contextual correctness o-f the extract, 1 may summarise its contents as follows: (a) Dr.i Parker (as quoted) declares that "no education can oe complete" without a " thorough religious training." , This is good Catholic doctriner (b) Dr. Parker declares that "it is not the business of the State" to furnish that religious* training. This is likewise sound Catholic doctrine, (c) " The State." iddo Dr. Parker, " might very well stop when, it has paid for a thorough knowledge, of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Thus I would not exclude religion; I simply would not include it." And his "reason for not including religion in rate-supported 'schools " is " simply " his objection, on Nonconformist principles, "to support it by rates and taxes, and thus by possible penalties." (1 may state that " rate-supported .schools" were built by religious and other bodies or private individuals, and received grants from public funds.) Nonconformist principles apart, we have Dr. Parker here advocating what Catholics have been so long demanding in Australia and New Zealand — namely, grants-in-aid to denominational schools, but for secular knowledge only; non-interference by the- State in religious instruction ; noninclusion of religious teaching among the subjects to be "supported" by "rates and taxes " ; and absolute refusal to countenance the positive "exclusion" of religion from education. Heav-qn bless your "philosophy of life." . (3) I iia-ye before me the words of such great leadera ot British Nonconformity as Matthew Henry, John Foster, Biobert Hall, and Hugh Owen — all of whom stand stoutly for the essential union of religion with education. But (4) even if you had a barnful of divines huzzaing for the exclusion of religion horn the schools, this would in no way "refute" or mitigate the " un-Chrisfcian implications " of the secular system, or t elieve you of the duty of justifying it, on Christian, and educational principles — if you can. (III.) The first godless schools were those founded, in the French Revolution, on the principles laid down by antiChristian philosophers, such as Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc. (1) Jsow it is for you to show, if you can, in what substantial way (if at all) the professedly "neutral" New Zealand secular system differs legally from the* still professedly "neutral" secular system of France. (2) To be "neutral" iv regard to religion is to refrain from taking sides thereon. Now, for Christians, religion ie (a) a body of truths regarding God and our relations to Him ; (b) flowing from these, a collection of duties, which have God as their primary object ; and (c) a virtue of justice towards God. Will you explain just how any sane adult, or any educational system, can possibly be "neutral" in regard to •religion; or how, in this connection, there can be any possible alternative between religion and irreligion? (3) I am all along dealing with what is involved in the godless system— and not yet fully realised by its well-meaning Christian supporters. It is no justification or "refutation" to assert that the ruling majority in New Zealand excluded religion from the schools, merely because some people "upon British soil" or elsewher-a. differed as to the kind -ynd amount of ■religion to be imparted in the schools, (a) You again assume, without proof, that- this is the only "solution" of the difficulty. Why cannot New Zealand, as well as Germany and so many other countries, unite religion and education, without State teaching of religion? And do you propose to suppress all land tenure because of the bitter war of opin•ions as between the leasehold tenure, and the freehold tenure? (b) And why do you assume, again without an atom of proof, that any political majority lias, on Christian principles, a moral right to legislate religion ont of its prescriptive and immemorial place iv education? You always get back to this : The burdent of proof is upon you. But the outstanding feature of this discussion, from the very first, has been your complete inability even to attempt, on Christian and educational lines, a justification of the exclusion of religion from the t.chools. My object in, entering upon this discussion has thus been amply achieved. I thank you greatly for your space. — Yours, etc.. [ + HENRY W. CLEARY. D.D., I Bishop of Auckland. Bth April. P.S. — Your procession of unsupported assertions of 7th April, just to hand, concerns two personal sid-e-iesues, and contains at least nine errors in matters j of fact — one ,of them the amazing statement that I term our secular system "godless" BECAUSE it does not endow private religious schools ! I have reached, if not passed, the limit allowed by you, but some of these matters will be included in a publit pronouncement which I propose to make at an opportune time, + H.W.C 10th April.