The Evening Star MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1909.

Evening Star, Issue 14186, 11 October 1909, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1909.

We agree with the ‘ Sydney Morning

Militant □cnominationansm.

Herald ’ that the scheme of educational readjust-

ment submitted by Cardinal Moran to -the Australasian Catholic Congress is “ entirely outside the range of practical politics.” The planet Mars formed the subject of an interesting paper read at the Congress by a learned layman, and wo are tempted to suggest that the Cardinal’s proposals are quite as closely related to hypothetical conditions in Mars as to the actual state of matters in Australasia. The respect duo to the Cardinal’s character and office prevents them from being tossed aside-as unworthy of serious consideration, but it is difficult to believe that the Roman Catholic leaders in Australia and New Zealand expect the Legislatures to give effect to these reactionary plans. Only a skeleton of the ecclesiastical scheme has as yet been given to the Press, and it is fair to note that this contains no mention of New Zealand—the special reference being to “ New South “ Wales and the other States of the “ Commonwealth ’’—but probably wo shall not err in assuming that the Dominion is inferentially included in the hierarchic designs. Wo might point to the paper lead at the Congress by our esteemed fellow-citizen and fellowjournalist the Very Rev. Dr Cleary—who, by the way, with characteristic daring, referred to “the withering atmosphere of State agnosticism ” [in Australia], and declared that the national systems of secular education “ arose naturally and logically out of “ the anti-religious philosophy by which ‘ ‘ Voltaire and Rousseau and their “ school sought to blot Christianity out “of the souls of men.” It is hopeless to try to induce denorainationalist devotees to recognise the fact sufficiently obvious as it is—that the State, in deciding to keep clear of the whirlpool of sectarian controversy, does not necessarily or usually assume an “ anti-religious ” attitude. To return, however, to the Cardinal’s proposals, which boast a Dutch origin, having been made in Holland. As one effect of tli© scheme the interest of civic life would be strikingly diversified and enlivened by the friction which inalienably belongs to discussions and policies dealing with religious education. For Cardinal Moran would transfer the task of erecting and maintaining all schools—including denominational institutions—from the State to the municipalities, who would contribute threefourths of the cost of erection, the Government paying the other fourth, as well as teachers’ salaries and expenses of administration. The Cardinal makes no affectation of nervous moderation in setting forth his demands for denominational facilities. Twenty heads of families in any district may ask for a denominational school, without fear or ‘possibility of refusal: “their request must be ac- “ ceded to, although other State or “ private schools may already exist “in the locality.” These new schools —Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Calathumpian, or whatever they may be—are to receive the same amount of Government aid for erection as is given to the State schools, and the teachers are to be on the same footing as State teachers in respect to salary, pension, etc., though the scheme provides that teachers for any branches not fixed by the State must be paid from private sources probably, in practice, not a very important stipulation. And who is to control these schools, built and maintained with the money of the taxpayers and ratepayers? Who will have the right of appointing and dismissing teachers ? The contributing Government ?—the contributing ratepayers?—a popularlyelected Board or Committee? Oh, dear no!

The original applicants appoint a committee, of which the local pastor is always president. Should a vacancy in the committee occur, the existing members elect a successor. The committee aro the legal owners of the school, and on them devolves the presenting of teachers for appointment and dismissal. 'Die president of the committee is the acting manager.

Presumably this self-elected committee of fortunate obscurantists would send in their bills for maintenance, etc., to Government and municipal council, and look for a prompt settlement without inconvenient questioning. After studying the various clauses of this amazing plan, one is almost disposed to ask whether this can really be the twentieth century in Australasia. The Cardinal might as reasonably ask for the moon, or Mars—and as hopefully. The ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’ has admirably described one aspect of the question: Premising that every petitioning denomination would have to bo supplied with a school, and that a municipality might be called upon to erect twenty or thirty insignificant buildings out of the rates, our contemporary goes on to remark ;

In these diminutive buildings a diminutive collection of scholars would assemble to be taught by a schoolmaster selected by the local pastor, and liable to instant dismissal if his zeal for education outran his zeal for the Church. How efficient such teachers would be we may imagine, but the State would be called on. to pay them salaries on the highest grade. The picture is not overdrawn, for it is quite certain that a return to denominationalism would mean that before long ezery section of the Christian Church represented in a locality would demand its “ rights,” and the result would be the collapse of the State system, and very soon after that the collapse of education also.

And in the same article the ‘ Herald ’ gives an excellent summary of the principles that should govern the attitnde and action of the State in regard to education—a passage which we hope did not escape the attention of the Very Rev. Dr Cleary. The plea for aid to denominational schools is founded and based on a complete misconception of those principles, and is, in many cases, associated with an inadequate realisation, of the obligations of Christian Churches and Christian parents in the matter of religious instruction. The Roman Catholics, it is true, are not open to this latter impntation. They do their duty to the young under their charge, according to their conscience, but they hav* no right to ask the State to pay for the satisfaction of what might be termed their scrupulous peculiarities. The State provhles the education requisite for good citizenship ; “as a part of its corporate acti- “ vity it unde Hakes the business of “ education for the same reason that

“it undertakes any other provision of “ public utilitieß—in a word, because “they cannbF.sAfely be left to private' “enterprise,” Those who desire to associate the work of education v-itb the teaching of religions doctrine may fairly be expected to pay for' their private privileges. A large majority of New Zealanders have made up their minds on this question once for all, and their convictions are not likely to be unsettled by the unwonted extravagance of tho new hierarchic demands.