CATHOLICS AND SCHOLARSHIPS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18512, 24 March 1922, Page 6

CATHOLICS AND SCHOLARSHIPS.

DR WHYTE’S STATEMENT. REPLY BY THE MINISTER. “A PERVERSION OF FACT.” (Fbon Ode Own •Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, March 23. Speaking at the Irish National Concert in Dunedin on St. Patrick’s Day, Bishop Whyte said that "the funds accruing from that concert were going to be used to enable children in the Roman Catholic schools, who had won scholarships, j and who were not allowed to accept them in the State schools, to take them out in their own schools. The New Zealand Government apparently did not want these brilliant children of the present, or at any future time, and the Federation had, therefore, decided that the efforts <of the Brothers and Sisters who had educated these young folk should not go for naught. Hence, it had decided to provide the necessary funds for the scholarships.” This statement has been brought under the notice of the Minister of Education (the Hon. C J. Parr), who remarked that it was clearly a perversion of the facte. As the law stands, said Mr Parr, any Roman Catholic child who wins a scholarship has the same right as a child of any other religion to take up the scholarship in a State secondary school. If, as is sometimes the case, a child of the Roman Catholic religion is not allowed by its parents to take up the scholarship in a State school, the Education Department cannot be blamed. It was certainly incorrect, under such circumstances, to say that the New Zealand Government ‘‘did not want these brilliant children.” * As a matter of fact, said Mr Parr, they would bo only too pleased to see them taking up scholarships in the State schools. The State offered free scholarships to Roman Catholics in common with other children, and it was not his fpult if such scholarships were not taken up