EDUCATION AND CHRISTIANITY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7355, 6 February 1911, Page 1

EDUCATION AND CHRISTIANITY

MAN’S ULTIMATE DESTINY ADDRESS BY ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD. Archbishop Redwood delivered a sermon at Wadeetown yesterday afternoon on religions education, the occasion being the opening of St. Brigid’s schoolchapel. ‘'Education,” he said, “is a preparation for life—the life of the child, the youth, the man—consequently the true goal of education is determined by the true goal of life. What, then, is the true goal of life? What ie man’s ultimate or last end? Has man no other life aims than some form or other of utilitarianism and of mere enjoyment, and then the blackness of extinction? Has man no other ultimate destiny than that of the ape, or the ox or the pig? No, ha has not, if Wo are to credit that shifting Proteus called modern philosophy, in the shape of positivism, pantheism, agnosticism. Yes, he has according to Christianity, according to that noble system based upon the deep-seated religions instincts and intellectual needs of man, and the beliefs and practices which are the immemorial possession of our race. Man is made for a supernatural end, to serve God for a time in this world and to bo happy with Him for ever in the other world to come.

“Tho child, then, has a religious as well as a social nature and destiny. Therefore, in any complete education, the religious nature of the child, still more than the social, must receive its due development, and direction; tne child must share in the spiritual as' well as the domestic and social and political inheritance of the human race. And tho first, tho greatest, tho most precious of the. spiritual inheritances of mankind is that of entering into right relatione with God.. Religion was simply education in the complete sense of the term. It was the bone of the bono and thie flesh of the flesh of education. No doubt physical, and intellectual training had their importance in education, but vastly more important was the formation of character by the training of the will in. habits of virtue. Bodily weakness and ignorance were evils, but vice was a far greater evil. THE TRAINING OP THE CHILD.

"The training of the Christian child centred round the personality of Christ, who loved children, tenderly caressed, them, blessed them, and declared that 'of such, is the kingdom of Heaven. ’ Education was not chiefly-a scholastic affair. The mere knowledge of accumulated facts was not ethical, because, a man might be gorged with knowledge and yet really uneducated. .Even tho knowledge of thje doctrines of religion, was not education or religion, for a man might bo a master of theological science and yet bo thoroughly irreligious. Religious truths must, of course, be taught as the necessary basis of morality. "Religion is a virtue,” continued the Archbishop, "and virtu© being a habit, and a habit being formed by a repetition of act£ (and that formation going on when the child's and the youth's nature is plastic), it should bo a main object of the educator to form hie charge to the virtue of religion. The child i© not born with habits either of virtue or vice, but he comes into the world with capacities, propensities and predispositions towards both virtue and vice; and the main function of education is 'to guide these capacities and predispositions into the right, course, to convert them into habits, and habits of virtue by, the free and repeated acts of the child. The habit thus acquired perfects the child's capacity for good, and enables it to act equally readily and to* good effect. Catholics attached great importance to the ‘‘religious atmosphere' in the- school. By this thei*- meant that religion must enter into all the processes of education.

“It will need no effort to see at n glance that the secular system of education prevalent 'in this Dominion is a; utter variance with. the true principlei; of religious education, and, therefore, w« Catholics arc, and must be, in principle, opposed to it as regards our children." In conclusion the Archbishop protested against this injustice done to Catholic® in that they had to pay double taxation for the education of their children—the payment for the State system by way of taxation, and the payment for the education of their children in the Catholic schools. The State system Catholics did not approve. It was a piece of irreligious crime, because it had the fatal skill of fairing many Christian people to up Christianise them.