The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1873. THE NEW EDUCATION BILL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 20, 13 September 1873, Page 5

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1873. THE NEW EDUCATION BILL.

This Bill has passed the House of Representatives, and it is not improbable, it will have passed the Legislative Council before these words shall be printed. Anything, therefore, we can say, can have no influence whatever on it« provisions. Our object, consequently, in discussing it is that our readers, that the Catholics of the Colony may know the nature of the legislation of the Colonial Parliament on the all-important subject of Education. This Bill consists of Title, Preamble, one hundred and one clauses, and a schedule. With the exception of Title Preamble, and clause No. 1, the Bill is divided into eleven parts The several Provinces may accept this new law, or not according to their pleasure ; it is a merely permissive enactment. Also any one of the parts may be accepted to the exclusion of all the others ; but with the exception of clause 53 in part 6, and clause 56 in part 7, the acceptance of any one part necessarily implies the acceptance of all the clauses of such part. Clause 53 makesj it lawful for the Board of any Province to grant aid to the schools of private individuals or associations ; and clause 54 empowers

the Supe rintendenfc to grant aid, as specified in 53, if refused by the Board without reasonable cause. Clause 56 permi ts the daily reading of the Scriptures in provincial schools. But a new clause 101, introduced by the Premier and passed by a majority of 4, enables Provincial Councils to reject these clauses. By rejecting clause 56, the Secularists can deprive Protestants of the reading of the Bible in the provincial schools. And clauses 53 and 54 may be rejected by. such Provinces as are determined to refuse all aid. to denominational schools. No one is ignorant of the meaning of all this. It evidently shows the determination of Otago and Canterbury to banish Catholic schools from these Provinces. According to this law, each Province is to have its own Education Board. These Boards are to consist of the Superintendent and Provincial Treasurer ex offieio, and of not less than six and not more than twelve other members for each Province and these other members are to be appointed in such manner as may be determined on, in; each Province by the Superintendent and Provincial Council. These Boards are empowered to arrange school districts, select school books, appoint and dismiss masters, fix the amount of the_ir salaries, levy school rates, establish grammar, 'model and high schools for both boys and, girls, and at the request of the majority in any school district' to make education compulsory in, such district, &c. &c. &c. In each school district there shall be a school committee consisting of eight resident male or female householders, to be elected by the majority present at a public meeting of the householders of the district who have' paid their rates, subject to the general supervision and control of the Board and to inspection by a government inspector of schools. The. school committee of every school district shall have the entire management of educational matters within the district. The Bill empowers Boards to establish free education, as maybe seen from the 48th clause which runs as follows. " If the Board of any Province shall be of opinion that it would be for the interests of education that the elementary schools and the elementary departments of superior schools established under this act within such Province should be open to all the pupils without- payment of school fees, the Board may open such schools and such elementary departments to all the pupils without requiring payment of school fees, and may, ia lieu thereof levy or cause to be levied capitation fees within the Province in manner hereinafter provided." Part 8 containing 8 clauses enables Boards, ' on the requisition of a majority of householders of any school district, to compel. all parents and guardians of children in such district, who reside within two miles of a provincial, aided, or other public school to send such children to school for at least one half of the period in each year in which school is usually open. Parents and guardians, however, Jiay obtain exemption from the operation of this law by obtaining a certificate, stating the ground of exemption, from the school committee of the district or a Justioe of the Peace! The grounds of exemption are — 1. "That the child is under efficient instruction otherwise. 2. That the child is prevented from attending school by sickness or other unavoidable cause. 3. That the road to school is not sufficiently passable for such child. 4. That one of the Government inspectors of schools or the master of any public school has by writing under his hand certified that such child has reached a standard of education prescribed by any regulations under this act. A fine of 40 shillings per. week may be imposed by any two Justices of the Peace on every parent or guardian who fails to obtain such ; i certificate as the above. Whenever the Holy Scriptures are read, before or after the hours of secular instruction, parents or guardians may withdraw their children from such reading. But if they should fail, through any cause whatsoever to do so, such children can be compelled under the Bill, to be present at the reading of the Bible. In all Provincial schools, four hours each day are to be devoted to purely secular instruction, and the Boards are empowered to define what is meant by secular instruction. They may put the worst historical works, for example, into the hands of children, such as Lord's Modern History, in which the Catholic Church is described as idolatrous, tyrannical, cruel, mercenary, and in which her priests, bishops, and popes are held up as ministers of iniquity ; and declare nevertheless, that such books contain noihiug but what is purely secular.

There is not throughout the entire enactment the least recognition of the rights and duties of the priests and bishops of the Catholic Church, in reference to the education of Catholics; whereas it embodies the fundamental principle of Protestantism—the reading of the Bible without note or comment. Moreover, this Bill positively excludes the clergy of the Catholic Church from the schools intended in the state for Catholic children in common with others. This law, therefore, in effect tells the bishops and priests to fetand aside whilst it enables their enemies to undermine the faith of the children committed to their charge— blind their intellects by teaching lies for history — corrupt their hearts by removing the sanction of their religion from their school work— and teach and encourage disobedience to the laws of God and their church. This miserable Bill embodies all the bad principles of all the bad systems of education of modern times. It sanctions even contradictory and antagonistic principles. Under it the various Provinces, nay, even the several school districts, may have each a system different from that of its neighbours. Every sect, every denomination except the Catholic church, will find in it its own fundamental principle of education. Protestants of the various sects can have the reading of the Bible without note or comment, and their own sectarian school books— there is nothing in the Bill to prevent them. On the contrary, the Boards are untrammelled in/ their selection of school books, and it is well known that in every case these Boards will be composed exclusively of Protestants. Secularists can, whenever they are the majority, establish secular schools, and the advocates of mixed education can have mixed schools. But as to Catholics, even if they happened to be the majority in any locality, they could not, under the provisions of this Bill, have a Catholic school. Then this new law sanctions the principle of free, compulsory, and sectarian education. Its provisions enable a school Board to insist on the reading of the Bible, the attendance of Catholics at such reading, unless parents or guardians actually withdraw children; they empower a Board to say to Catholics, You must send your children to our mixed or sectarian or secular schools as the case may be • you must pay taxes to maintain these schools which you abhor ; you must submit to our teaching in history and the Bible ; you must.not have schools of your own, we will not recognise the certificate of a Catholic teacher or a Catholic school as proof of adequate training elsewhere than in our own schools ; we will tax y/u so that you shall not have the means to erect and maintain Catholic schools. As our lathers of old pumshed your fathers, for not attending Protestant churches by fines, till they reduced them to beggary, we will punish you, for not sending your children to godless or sectarian schools, by taxes and fines, till we render you so poor that your children must either wallow in ignorance or barter their faith for secular knowledge mixed with detestation of every thing Catholic. ° ¥c do not say all this will come to pass, but the new education Bill of the Colonial Government enables all this to be done ; and we have no doubt whatever that an attempt to do all this will be made both in Ofcago and Canterbury.