DR CROKE AND OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5504, 3 March 1896, Page 2

DR CROKE AND OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM.

♦ A few months ago, it may be remembered, we quoted from the Review af Reviews an expression of opinion credited to Dr Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, regarding the satisfaction given by the secular system of education in New Zealand. It was evident that Dr Croke, who was some twenty years ago Bishop of Auckland, was either misreported, or that he had entirely misunderstood the Eoman Catholic feeling-. regarding otir education system. The Very Eev Father Lynch, of Dunedin, was so satisfied that the expression of opinion said to have fallen from the Archbishop of Cashel was erroneously attributed to him, that he communicated with him on the subject. The last mail brought to Father Lynch a reply from Ireland. Dr Croke, after mentioning that he had only had a passing conversation with Mr Stead, and that in consequence the so-called sketch, drawn from memory, recounted several things as said or done by him which he could not at all recognise and did not at all admit or accept, writes with reference to the views on the education question ascribed to him ; — "All I desire to say is that I spoke to Mr Stead in the past and not inthepresent tense ('seemed' for 'seems'); that I had regard to the province of Aucte land alone and not to New Zealand at large, as he would give people to understand ; and that what I meant to convey was that, while in Auckland, I considered the school system there 'fairly satisfactory! in the sense that, though far from being what I could approve of, it was the best then procurable, affording, as it did, an easy opportunity of imparting religious instruction to Catholic pupils on one or two days of each week, before or after school hours. * * * For the rest it is needless to say that I am, and ever have been, a staunch and uncompromising supporter of the denominational, as opposed to the secular, system, at Home and abroad ; that the time for compromise, if it ever existed, has passed by in this matter ; and that, in common with all fair-minded men, I regard it as an act of shameful tyranny and injustice to tax Catholics, or the members of any other denomination, for the maintenance of schools which they cannot conscienr tiously avail of, and deny them, at the same time, all participation in the public funds for educational purposes, to which as citizens they have been obliged to contribute their proportionate share." That is the Eoman Catholic attitude in a nutshell, and it is well to have it thus opportunely stated, when it is being insinuated that the adoption of the Irish scripture text-book in otir schools would satisfy the Catholics of this colony.