COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

Marlborough Express, Volume V, Issue 249, 17 September 1870, Page 4

COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sir, —Epithets are not arguments; I shall try to resist the temptation of calling names. It behoves me to inform your readers—for there is cause to apprehend the length of his nearly three-column letter will have prevented many from perusing it—that “ Justitia et Pax” appears-hurt by my playful allusion to France. I “kicked” it, he says. In mitigation of his (no doubt) patriotic’wrath, allow me to say that I honor France as a great country, a land where liberty of thought and liberty of all other kinds is extending, a leader in the march of progress;; too much a leader, in fact, to allow, herself to be thoroughly in leading strings to Rome. I will not charge my oponent with wilful mis-quotation of ray words, when he represents me as saying “ not seven per cent, would object to their children reading the corrupted word of God I will rather assume that the printer omitted the brackets to the word “corrupted.” As to the question of education, it is evident by our correspondent’s mode of arguing that, what he dreads is not compulsory education in itself, so much as compulsory bible education. By not sufficiently distinguishing these two things which differ, he has raised a man of straw which he manfully sets himself to knock down. Mere compulsion to educate he has utterly failed to prove unprincipled. It is this terrible Protestant Bible that he so drives at. Yet neither he nor his Catholic friends have any good ground for their excitement. Though news concerning the final form of Mr Forster’s “Education Bill” has not yet arrived, we may confidently expect that “an objection in writing from parents or guardians” will be allowed as amply sufficient to free a child from biblical or, indeed, any religious instruction. One might .suppose the English Government were a mere set of propagandists, to hear “Justitia et Pax ” talk about compulsory and conscience clauses being “ persecution in disguise ” and “ abuse of power.” He says “ all Catholics . . . have pledged themselves not to admit any . . . conscience clause, which tvould only be a dead letter in the hands of a Protestant Government.” What ground has he for talking in that strain? With such manifestos of the mind of Government as the Disestablishment of the Irish Church and the Maynooth Grant before him, the words read with a* very ill grace. It is annoying to see how Catholics write on the subject of English abuse of power. Where is' the country in which exists truer toleration, or greater freedom for both the practice and the progagation of the papal doctrine, than in England? Does she publish an “ Index Expurgatorium ” to. stifle “Catholic” literature. If we want to see intolerance and abuse of power we must seek it in any country where Rome has had paramount influence with Government. Does England proscribe the Douay Bible as did Spain the, Protestant Bible until. very lately ? What means the Inquisition ? for I suppose “Justitia et Pax ” has not gone quite so far as to deny that, there' ever was any Inquisition, although he has made some remarkable .statements,about its doings. Why was it established ? To root what is called “ heresy ” out of Catholic countries. Has Protestant -England. ;any ■ institution to watch it, for the. destruction of Catholicism?, , A word or two more about this famous “ Holy Office.” It is an easy thing to quote names of historians on any side of the question. I could name Limborch, Llorente, Piazza, &c., who tell a very different story to “ Justitia et Pax.” Do the words “Albigenses,” “Toulouse,” “Lateran Cotincils,” bring to his, mind the ihfancy of the Inquisition ? It is part of the history .of-France; he cannot .be ignorant of it.’ The 3rd Lateran • Council';decreed- that the houses and goods of the, heretics should be confiscated, and' themselves reduced to slavery by their Princes. It proceeds, “ Et qui contra’ arma susceperint,” &c ; “ We take off two years’, penande frb'm such of the faithful as r shall take up arms against them dor the purpose, of -subduing them,?’ ,&b. ' The 4th Lateran issued a .persecuting edict ( 's'till more stringent, enjoining s fipoh’ secular powers ■to extirpate (exterminate) heretics, under pain of excommunication. These decrees in the 12th and 13 th centuries’were, not dead letters ; and when chroniclerstell lis that crusades were organised by Legates of the Pope', 5 and bloody wars, waged against Raymond of Toulouse and his Albigeois, accompanied ■ with great cruelty, these decrees form an irresistible confirmation. Dr Rule’s is, I believe, the latest “History of the Inquisition.” He affirms persons were for several years walled up in a building at Toulouse having only an aperture at the top ; others wore the martyr’s robe of; flame. „ On Sunday, June

15th, 1320, John Phillibert, a converted priest, was 'publicly degraded from his office of Pfesbyter, then handed over to the Seneschal, Lord Guy, and burnt alive. Our opponent has, to put it in the mildest form, tried to do some special pleading for Spam. I deny that the Spanish Government had complete control over the Inquisition as a regular thing. Torquemada was the first Inquisitor who was really unsubmissive to Rome. He was appointed by the joint action of Pope Sextus IV, and Ferdinand of Spain. Being a skillful diplomatist he succeeded in playing off his two masters one against the other, so as to gain an independent power, which he did not fail to use in a most barbarous manner. It is well ascertained, on the authority of the persons named, that in Spain alone, apart from her colonies, during his “generalship” not less than 8,800 persons were burnt. It will be said the Pope was not to be held responsible for these cruelties. If not, Romanism is. But I submit that he was to a very serious extent. _ If an Alpine tourist wilfully set a boulder rolling adown the steep, would his plea that he had no power to arrest it make him irresponsible for damage to life and property ? The Spanish Inquisition was a ‘ * Catholic” institution throughout. Even when most independent of the Pope, its victims were Jews and Protestants. Phillip 11. was frequently heard to say, “he would rather not be a king than reign over heretics and infidels.” ■ Hence the “ auto da fe” blazed throughout the Peninsula. Mariana, a chosen authority of “Justitia et Pax,” disproves the startling statement of the latter, that not ten persons were slain by order of the Spanish Inquisition. Before Torquemada’s day -many hundreds were burnt alive (B 24, ch. 17); but we need not go. so fax back ; take the present year. Writing at Madrid, January 14th, 1870, Mr H. Grattan Guinness says (and if he tell a lie, either white or black, “Justitia et Pax” can ascertain) : “ Most have heard of the discovery made close to Madrid of the ‘ quemadero’ where 300 years ago the Inquisition burned socalled heretics. Some workmen came upon it in cutting a new road. The amount of human remains subsequently excavated is appalling. Among other horrors were found two bony hands tranfixed by a large nail, and clasped in the attitude of prayer ... The effect of the discovery was immense. A speaker in the Cortes said that while there were strange geological, there were also strange theological sections and strata revealing the history of the past.” Let “Justitia et Pax” talk no more about ten victims of the Inquisition. He mercifully adds, “No doubt they richly deserved it." Our opponent has a great deal to say about Catholic and Protestant educational efforts. I wish I had more space. “Twice as many schools in Rome as in Berlin ” : ergo, Rome better educated. What reasoning ! Take his own statistics of Rome : Population, 158,678 ; children at school, 14,099 ; proportion at school, lin 11 25. Victorian Education Boards publish comparative tables, and state that Prussia has at school lin 6"18 ; this turns the tables.' “It is said ” (said Scnor Castlelar in the Spanish Cortes) “our people are not instructed, audit is true ; yet for 15 centuries the Catholic Church has had the instructing of them.” An Irish Roman Catholic barrister has the following—• “ Why during these 250 years did not the Church set about teaching the population of Spain ? She gave to it religion, music, art, such as it was ; but popular education she gave them none. It is only since the ‘ French Revolution ’ that the bishops have found out it was .their mission to preside over education.” Moi-e did space pennit.—l am, &c., Pax si Fas. [The subject which drew forth the controversy between “Justitia et Pax’’and “Pax si Fas” has been lost in the controversy. From all sides our readers complain of the length and unpopular subject of the letters. It would be far more to the purpose did our esteemed correspondents start a controversial magazine for the especial purpose of having it out. A newspaper is quite unfit for theological controversy ; and as the present one seems unlikely to end from inanition, and is getting rather acrimonious in tone, it becomes our duty to close it with the above letter.—Ed. M.E.