STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18272, 13 December 1922, Page 10

STATE SCHOLARSHIPS.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS.

ATTACK ON GOVERNMENT.

UNFAIR TREATMENT ALLEGED.

" Thirteen years ago, when Brother Clement read his first report as director of this college, he denounced the unfairness of the system which precluded private secondary schools from receiving winners of national scholarships," said Brother Borgia, director of the Sacred Heart College, at the prize-giving ceremony last evening. "About that time," Father Borgia continued, *' I was transferred to New South Wales, and I was glad to find a more liberal spirit prevailing there; for by the Bursary Endowment Act, winners of scholarships were allowed to take them out at private, registered secondary schoobi, tha Bursary Board being empowered to pay for their education at these schools. When I was director of St. John's College, Hunter's Hill, I had as many as 50 State bursals there, for whose education I received a sum of about i.<!UW a year from the Department of Education. In the meantime matters improved in New Zealand also, so that eventually national scholarship-holders were allowed to take them out at private schools. " But when I returned to New Zealand a year ago I was amazed to find that this small measure of justice to the private secondary schools had been withdrawn by the Massey Government. I do not know of anything so paltry and petty in the history of New Zealand legislation. The political reactionaries responsible for this retrograde step ought to bo the objects of every honest mans contempt. (Hear, hear.) They cannot base their action on any lack of efficiency in the private schools, for, judged even by the narrow standard of examination results, they easily hold their own. At the examinations held m December, 1921, the students of the college met with the ÜBual success in the intermediate, public service, senior national and matriculation examinations, while Wilfred Kalaugher and Thomas Lanigan gained fame for their school by winning university entrance scholarships—and this, in spite, of the fact that our learned Chief Justice was of opinion that our Roman Catholic schools were incapable of this achievement."