NATIONAL EDUCATION

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 91, 17 April 1917, Page 2

NATIONAL EDUCATION

TO IDE EDITOR.

Sir,—Nothing can b# gained by continuing this controversy. I entered xipon it simply to protest against our Catholic friends raising sectarian, issues and so embarrassing our Government at this critical juncture in our national experience. ' Catholics, it appears, demand '' favoured treatment for their clergy, their teachers, and their schools; and, as good as make this the price of their loyalty! This looks like taking a leaf out of Old Ireland's- book. If tho other religious denominations and private educational institutions made similar demands for "favoured treatment" (to which they are quite as much entitled as our Catholic friends) it would completely wreck our present noble system of education. That would; no doubt, be hailed with jubilation by Catholics! That the other religious denominations fail to send secret deputations to Ministers of the Crown, and to pull political strings clandestinely, with a view to securing " favoured "treatment" for their clergy, is no concern of Catholics! It but shows what "muffs", the official heads of the other churches are !

" Catholic," it appears, does believe in "a" national system of educajjon, but i not in our New Zealand national sys- I tern! He would, apparently, introduce-, the Scottish national system into New I Zealand.. Exactly. The Scottish national system is purely sectarian, not secular. Every teacher is .subject to a religious test. The • Scottish schools are ■ maintained mainly from local rates, and ! partly from a Government "capitation." | In the few centres where Catholics can run schools' of their own they receive "capitation" for their pupils, but no aid 'whatever from local rates! For thisj consideration they are content to allow their children to bo educated in somo 90 per cent, of the Scottish school districts in. Protestant schools—their children being exempted from '" Bible les-i .sons."

Now oiir New Zealand schools are not 'Protestant schools—they are, so far as 'the various religious denominations are concerned, absolutely neutral and impartial.

In from 80 to 90 per cent.- of the school districts in New Zealand Catholics can provide no schools at all for their own children. The- Stato has to provide what Catholics generoasly call a "Godless" and "secularist" education for Catholic children iv such dis--tricts! Yet our Catholic friends persist in demanding "favoured treatment" for their schools {run in ■ opposition to State schools) in the more populous centres! The State is really generosity itself' to them. They forget that it (the State)allows them to maintain their schools on what is really exploited, if not slave, labour. I am always prepared to enter the lists against, or to carry on a. controversy with, even an anonymous correspondent who " fights fair and plays the game," but I decline to continue correspondence witlnone who persists in clouding the issue, as does-"' Catholic," by a, persistent and wilful misuse of the terms "secularist" and "secularism."

According to Father M'Grath, of Nelson, who recently took Mr. Considine (a member of one of our Military Service Boards) severely to task for daring to speak as a "representative" Catholic, every Catholic who publicly claims to represent the Catholic Church must be "accredited" by the hierarchy. If this is true, it means that the Catholic Federation, and even your anonymous correspondent " Catholic," can but edit the voice of the, hierarchy. Were it otherwise they would be suppressed or publicly disclaimed. . For' nearly forty years' I have been" an ardent advocate of HomeKulo' for 'Ireland, though I have, repeatedly, gone near - to , despairing of my Celtic friends in Ireland, who, after all, have had no more serious "grievance" against England than their peaceful and loyal fellow-Celts in Scotland. Again, no Catholic' in New Zealand or elsewhere can honestly affirm that I would deny Mm. or his Church, any political, ecclesiastical, or' educational right- or privilege that I would claim for any other religious, denomination or for myself. Having said that much, I promise you, Mr. Editor, not to deal' any more with ostensibly " unofficial" Catholics, who write anonymously, or with this subject at all_, if I can help it, until the present war is over.—l am, etc.,

HUGH MACKENZIE,

14th April, 1917. [This correspondence is now closed.— Ed.]