EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 89, 14 April 1917, Page 9

EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

TO IHZ ISITOJI,

Sir,—Professor Mackenzie, iv his last letter, has adopted the plan tlhat is usual ■with the debater with a weak argument. He erects a scarecrow man and then with a great bkre of trumpets and feigned sarcasm proceeds to tear the scarecrow to pieces. ■

Many of your readers have heard of an old gentleman of the name Euclid*.' .who lived some few yearn ago. This savant taught the world that before procedtrig to build up an argumnt you should, make absolutely certain that your premises are. correct. /Now that is just where our good friend from the Uni-, versity has failed hopelessly, and when 1 his weak supports are removed it will be seen thai his': argument tumbles to pieces like a'-house'of cards. • . '■ . Professor Mackenzie strives to show analogy between education as undertaken by the State and "any other department of. the State 'service' which confines it;self to secular work."., There' is no analogy whatever.. Your, correspondent has been liviug long enough to know that people do not patronise the" railway to have their , children educated and imbued lie principals of right conduct, but that the railway is fun 'merely for the purpose of transporting people and goods from one part of the country to another. People do not go to the hospitals to be told of whence they came, how they are to live, and What is their destiny. He must know also that the Post Office is a department, of the State run for the purpose pf selling stamps, etc.. and that, its officials have no concern "whatever* with the; conduct of the people who come under their control, and are not at all occupied with their ideas of right and wrong. * ' ■. Catholics are quite agreed that it is the duty of the State to provide for the education of all th« children: of the State," and this can be done as I have already shown without violating the consciences and purses of any. So far, the State in Ne:v Zealand has provided for only one section—the secularists. We /do not wish to interfere in the\least with the secularists and their schools, but we strongly object to the Government using our money for their upkeep., They provide only for a, section, and as with the alleged analogy that I have refuted above it is, the Professor says, "a palpably disingenuous method of argument" to state that they alone should be catered for. Professor Mackenzie is much concerned with the efficiency of the schools, when Catholics would have spent on their schools the money they' contribute through taxation for education, but He makes no attempt whatever to explain why they should be less efficient than the excellent schools' of Canada and Scotland and other places where Catholics and Protestants, as weir as the secularists receive their fair share of *he education vote. Nor does he try to show that the excellent Catholic system of New Zealand is one whit inferior from every point of view to the secular,system. It would be a vain attempt. Although we are as a body the worst off in the goods pf this world, we have built our school, staffed them with efficient teadhers, and every year show results that aTe, equal to the best and superior to most of the secular schools.

The secularists need have no fear of the efficiency of Catholic schools. . We shall build our schools, and answer willingly the most exacting State requirements. We Would .even."allow- 1- the Government to. ; butld .our; 1 schools, only they might make the bash of things they have done with many of the secular schools. We woiild submit' our plans for approval, but would not allow the State to impose on us. Professor Mackenzie talks of our wanting to have the inspectors trained in our schools. We want nothing of the sort, and to »ay I that this follows from my argument is (to quote again from the Professorfe verbosity), but " throwing dust in She eyes of such as are not able to discriminate." If all- were as fair-minded as the school inspectors of New Zealand our troubles iwould soon be at an end. From one end of New Zealand to the other the Government inspectors j are the friends of the Catholic teachers, who welcome any suegestkms emanating from them. ■ Unless Professor Mackenzie and his biother secularists can show why Catholics should not have their own money spent on tfieir own Catholic schools, when the Government is satisfied that they are thoroughly efficient, just as the secularists have their money ! spent on their schools it would be use- j less to continue thiq controversy, as I have neither time nor inclination to be refuting arguments tihat have been riddled through and through many times over.—l am, etc., CATHOLIC.