Bishop Moran on our Education System.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6240, 12 June 1890, Page 3

Bishop Moran on our Education System.

At St. Joseph’s Calhedral, on Sunday evening, the most Bev. Dr Moran gave an address on the education question, tfo said that there were some persons still to be found fvho held that as Government had established a secular system of education of which Catholics might avail themselves' if they ] please, Catholics had no reason to complain of being obliged to contribute to the support of this system on the ground that they did not avail themselves of it. This was one of few secularist arguments of former days that was still heard ; whilst other arguments, such as the police argument, had been long ago abandoned. To compel men to pay for a church in which they did not believe was regarded as an interference with religious liberty, and as no less odious and oppressive and unjust than the tithe system in vogue in the penal days, against which they so long and fiercely contended, and over which they in the end gained a complete victory. If Catholics could with a safe conscience avail themselves of the public schools they would gladly, do so. Did any man suppose that it was for mere opposition’s sake that they annually made great sacrifices of money, time and labour in an effort to provide Catholic schools for their children ? If such a man existed ho must be a curiosity indeed. Catholics could no more accept the public school system of this colony than they could accept the Anglican or Presbyterian Church system, and, consequently it was tyranny, injustice, an an invasion of their religious liberty to compel them to contribute to the maintenance of this system. For this reason it was that they demand in the shape of subsidy an equitable equivalent for ’the sums ab straded from them in support of it. The Bishop concluded his address as follows :—The crowning objection is that if Catholic schools are treated justly and Catholic taxpayers get some value for their money the present public school system will be destroyed. I do not think such a result would follow. The experience of England, Scotland, Ireland,| Canada, and the continental States before alluded to confirms mo in this conviction. But admitting for argument sake _ that such a result would follow, what of it ? Are the people of New Zealand so poor in intellectual resources as to be unable to devise a just and equitable system of education ? Is no other system but a godless one—a system full of injustice, and which requires, according to universal conviction, numerous amendments--possible to the people of New Zealand ? _Are the people of this country content to be written down as stupids, and incapable of devising any other system than that which now lies so heavily on the country ?