EDUCATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 5153, 21 December 1903, Page 5

EDUCATION.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS. BISHOP LENIHAN AND SIR ROBERT STOUT. PRESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, December 20. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland (Dr Lonihan), in presenting prizes to the pupils of St. Benedict’s parish school' criticised the recent remarks of Sir Robert Stout on education. The Bishop said he was surprised at so un-called-for an insult coming from one in so responsible a position as Sir Robert Stout. The Chief Justice had declared that all who differed from him in regard to the system of State education that now obtained in the colony wjero', ■ traitors to their country. Ho, iprqr/ fessodly without religious belief, decried the tenets of those who had sacrificed practically their all to enable children under their care to bo brought up in a system of faith which, if carried out, must make them moral and law-abiding citizens. Catholics said it was rank rebellion against our good God to keep tho young generation in schools all day (or tho term of their childhood and youth, and during that time to rigidly exclude from them all knowledge of the Supremo' Being. In school training, covering as it did the principal years of child-life, to exclude all mention of God, all recognition of His supremacy, and all instruction as to duty towards Him, was disloyalty to the Creator and dishonesty to the child. The Catholic Church could not for a moment ho an accessory to such a'wrong. No plan which a clever statesman could devise to overcome tho opposition of the Church had been - omitted. Palatial school buildings had everywhere been erected' by the State, scholarships and other largo money prizes had been lavishly offered, bub the reply of the Catholic Church to-day and always had been that or the- Hebrew children long ago, “ Thy gods, O King, wo Will not worship, and before the golden statue wc will not bow down.” It was hoped to weary out the Church by tho funds of the. people, and statesmen had said, “It may be a matter of time, but Catholics will have to succumb as well as the rest.”. t . In no place had they succumbed, and least of all.perhaps hero in'New Zealand. (Loud applause.) Tho Chief Justice in his speech advised his hearers to “have backbone, and not ha afraid, to assert themselves”; that“they should dare to speak out what they believed, and spcalcit honestly, though they might he in the minority”; and,yet ho laid his curse upon Catholics for acting in this manner. They upheld the laws of the land. How hard it was to respect tho interpreters of. tho law when they insulted Catiiolios, and wounded their most cherished feelings in so wanton a fashion. (Loud and , continued applause.)