THIS IRREPRESSIBLE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2409, 12 June 1882, Page 3

THIS IRREPRESSIBLE EDUCATION QUESTION.

TO THB EDITOR OF IBS TIUABTJ HBBAID. SlB, — 1m « former letter I promised, with your kind indulgence, to return to tbe second part of my thesis on the education question. Before doing so, permit me to thank you for the insertion of my last. It is to your innate tense of justice, jour love for liberty of oonscience, and tho paramount import anca of t lie rducntion question, that I can attribute the favor you have done me. On no sccouut, Sir, citn il be truthfully stated that it is the Catholics who are decrying the present system of clucsti^n. and speaking hard thingsof it. Ail that Catholics I complain of is that our present system is not universal m its application ; that it does not respect tbe rightful freedom of conscience of a 1 Christians. How often have we not seen it put forthin the Fress,snd listened to politicians m the heat of political strife on the eve of an election, maintaining that a sjs'em of public schools m accordance with the idea of universal liberty of conscience was something utterly impracticable ? It is only colonial politicians who could make such au unfounded assertion as tbi*. I ask you, Sir, would any tcholar acquainted with the different educational systems of the world, make such an untruthful statement, wbrn it it well-known that a system of education having for its basis universal liberty of conscience hat obtained the sanction of all tho great nations of Europe ? Did not Pruttia, until the rtcent persecuting Falk Laws came into txutenoe (the name of which makes a German blush and bang down hit head for very shame), enjoy for generations one of the wisest, best, and most enlightened systems of education — and such a system as respected liberty of conscience m all her subjrets P Happily, and to tho credit of the great German nition be it said, they have seen the great error they committed, and they are fast repealing the Falk Laws. Did not Franc?, until a short time ago when tno French .Radical* got the upper band, treat all tohools, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Turk, with even-handed justice and equal liberty of conscience ? I will here en passant quote a remark whioh I read iv a French journal regarding the Kadical Government and Liberty. "That it is impossible, unless by a surgical operation, if even then to get an idea of true liberty to enter the mind of t, Frenoh Kadioil." What is more to the point, and I regard it unanswerable, is the example of Protestant England and Catholic Austria, where no one has ever heard a Catholic complain m tho former or a Protestant m the latter empire, that perfect justice and complete freedom of conscience are not allowed to the fullest extent m the education of their children. Again I may be permitted to appeal tovou, Sir, would not the great Ber.ateHous.et of Protestant EngUnd as well as of Catholic Austria, feel disgraced if they did not understand better what are tho rights of parents, how to respect freedom of conscience m educational m&tterj, or if they did not comprehend what is just, and equitable to their lojal subjects, than to impose upon them a general tsx for the suppert of public schcolt into which a considerable portion of their people could not send their children ? Let the best of nur colonial politicians digest this query and give their replj. It was most foolishly contemplated by the framers of the present system of education, and by ProtosUnts m general, to drcitbolicize the children of Catholic's. They thought that the Catholics being tbe poorer class would never take the erection of their own schools and the educating of their children into their own hands ; but that the national system being nominally a free system, the Catholics would rush into the State, schools and actually overcrowd thsoi, No doubt tbe invitations to Cat holici to attend them were tent out by the Press m gushing articles and made by our politicians with the most benevolont smiles; but the cautious Catholic! had no temptation to bo inveigled into tbe parlor and enjoy the telea tete prepared for them by the subtle spider. If the framert of tbe present system had known anything of the history of Irish Catholics, they ought to have known that similar efforts, were made from time to tine to supply Ireland with public- schools, and for the very same purpose, and they always proved fail ares. There were the Kpyal Free Schools m 1608, Erasmus Smith's schools m 1733, the London Hibernian schools m 18U, and quite a host of others, all aiming more or leas energetically at weaning the Irish youth from Popery j and the Irish youth still more energetically stopped away en masse, as they do here m New Zealand. In the sad lamentable choice between lost of education on the one hand and sacrifice of riligious convictions on the other, Irish Catholic parents preferred the former for their children. It never can be said that the Iriih people oared little for education. Has not their land been called centuries back Insula sanctorum et doclorum. We passionately worshipped educa!ion,yoarned for it as the blind long to ses the wonders of the. .Universe. When statute after ita tut e, penalty' after penalty rained upon the Irish Catholics — laws making it a felony for a Catholio to act as a teacher, and civil death for a Catholic child to be taught by such a master — even then, when the tempett .of persecution raged most fiercely around us, were we satisfied to remain illiterate ? No Sir. Notwithstanding this dreadful proscription of a whole nations education by a persecution which stands unparalleled m the annals of pagan; Borne, we made silent and unheard of. efforts to keep alive the lamp of literature. Still oroucbing 'ncath tho sheltering hodgo or stretched on mountain fern, The teaoher and his pupils met foloniously to learn. Those wbo call us ignorant Irish and upbraid us with a want of educition know very little about what thei say. They don't know what an equivalent we were asked to pay for our education. They know little of the price that was demanded — a price more valuable than all the riob.es of this world or than all the furniture of heaven — the lost of our f»ith. The Irith race may indeed bs subjects of reproach and censure for many 'shortcomings, but for, the want of education, fjr our. being illiterate we stand exonerated m the pa^es of impartial history — eVen oar greatest-, slanderer Froudo himself holds us guiltiest, and says— "We are not culprits, but victim? ," Yet, Sir, we hare always valued and estimated educition as no other people did, but we have l>uard«d jealously tbe dictate!- of con«cionoe and prized the old faith and religion more. I am, &c, J ( M.