THE SECULAR SEIZURE OF THE SCHOOLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7019, 6 January 1910, Page 9

THE SECULAR SEIZURE OF THE SCHOOLS

(TO tbo Editor "N.Z. Times.”) Sir, —Xt seems almost impossible to get non-Christians to put their prejudices sufficiently aside to perceive even faintly the truth of the obvious moral principle that Christian people who are compulsorily taxed for the education of their children have a right to a say on the question whether their children shall receive Christian instruction in them from Christian teachers. There can _be no peace as long as this principle is ignored. If ear of its practical recognition has ■ again roused Mr Gammed to the making of statements so .exaggerated in character as to overbalance themselves and fall to .pieces in absurdity. Let me, however, endeavour to take him seriously. He and his ardent supporter “A.Z.”* agree in calling it ' a ‘ ‘crime” to give, religious instruction in schools. He, knows some offenders. Why then does' he not institute or cause to be stituted criminal proceedings against them? I. do not suppose that he Hunks the offence to be the only crime that should not merit punishment. How would he punish the offenders? 1 So many years’ imprisonment or thei stocks? In seeking -to brand our. rights as crimes he is taking ns back to; such times as those of Nero. Already' he has the satisfaction of knowing that there can be no Christian school in New] Zealand without the penalising of the' parents of the attending children who ( nave to pay fees in addition to The penalties arc - incentives to the 1 “crime” and if he would spend his time, in seeking to remove the incentives the ‘‘crime” rwould be less likely to he committed. ■

* Ho, however, is no reformer. He tells ns he,is a Rationalist.. This description is an index to his opinions. We may respect his opinions, but cannot allow him to throw them down before us as facts to block our way. He charges us* with ignorance and superstition. • Shall wo then go to him for knowledge? Even -examiners of schools may fill columns in newspapers and give ns nothing but stones for bread. The. Icnowledgo men boost of to-day often becomes the ignorance of the morrow.; A. cold criticism that roots out tares is! in danger of rooting out. the wheat also. Faint germs of‘ truth have often reached men throug/h an accompaniment of superstition, and tho best of; us now can but , seo in part, So tho truth has been struggling to reach all nations that this life does not end all. Sophocles delineated a noble characterin Antigone. Had ho put beside her*, a cold critic denouncing . as ignorance and superstition the religious conceptions that impelled her ■to disobey Croon's edict, seizing upon every opportunity to denounce everything not in accord with Rationalistic speculations, and advising the dismissal from life' of everything that cam©''short of mathematical demonstration; Antigone’s char, aoter would not have suffered in comparison and the universal admiration accorded her would have com© into con. trast with an equally wide reprobation of the critic.

It is a mistake to suppose that secularism kills superstition. Mr GammeU may or may not -believe that belief in tho Providence of God is an ignorant superstition, but our secularly trained people in dismissing the belief are actuated by such superstitions (if Mr Gammell would call thorn so) as cause them to adopt or refrain from certain lines of action on the ground of the supposed good or bad luck attributed by the luck-prophets. Our secularly trained people too have betaken themselves to fortune-tellers in such jiixmbers and with such results that the law has had to step in and fine those who give informaton of the future. It maybe, indeed, that the present home of superstition 'is in secularism.

“A.Z." tries to prop tip the tottering arguments of his chief by announcing that if religious teaching is given in our public schools the form supplied will be exclusively Roman. He wants to frierhten us and therefore comes to us with a piece of ready-made fortunetelling. There are, however, many other thinEs more likely to happen. At any rate, it is for us. under the Providence of Gcd, to do our duty, and there are in the Roman Catholic religion truths that we can never eject from our lives or sacrifice to secularism. Tim question is not' to bo decided either by levelling charges against

us of ignorance, superstition and crime, nor by secular Next “A.Z/' runs off into conclusions derived from Sir Robert Stout's famous statistics. The fallacy of tbc conclusions seems to be pretty clear when we find that Sir Robert, in your issue of November 12th, gives the information that his statistics may be seen “in the published criminal statistics of the colony/' while all the time nobody in New Zealand could find them. Even the untiring energy and anxiety of Mr G-ammoll could not discover any statistics to support the conclusions drawn by Sir Robert, and could only suppose that Sir Robert held them “in reserve/’ In other words the published statistics which must .have been in front of Mr Gammell and others did not in his judgment warrant Sir Robert's assertions. Perhaps (with a big emphasis on the “perhaps") when Sir Robert returns on the 27th prox. Mr Gammed will caro to return to the question. Meantime your correspondents would do well not to exhaust themselves before the time.—l am, etc., ARISTOBULXJS. Wellington, January Ist. [Letters on this subject must bo kept short*. —Ed. “N.Z.T.”]