ENGLISH LEGISLATION ON EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 71, 5 September 1874, Page 8

ENGLISH LEGISLATION ON EDUCATION.

The following article, clipped from the columns of an Irish paper, the ' Tralee Chronicle,' sets forth in vivid colors the evils and horrors bred and fostered by a godless and infidel instruction of the masses. The monstrous injustice depicted below is nothing more or less than the disadvantages under which Catholics labor in this supposed land of equality, and much as -we deplore the gross illiborality with which the Catholics of Ireland are treated, we regret to acknowledge our own positioa is not one whit better :—: —

The Education system of a Nation is one of those complicated social problems which have been convulsing the world for a considerable time, and of which in many countries no satisfactory solution seems forthcoming, dome countries have been making Educational experiments for more than a century, and a fair trial has already been given on the Continent to that fashionable secular system which statesmen have been attempting and are still desirous to impose on Ireland." France, defiled with the blood of her own children, distracted by repeated revolutions and still harrassed by internal strife, can testify to the bitter fruit which she has reaped from godless Education, and to the dreadful ravages made by that monster, Secularism, from which she is now wisely taking refuge, in her return to a truly religious spjrit. Though simil ir causes in similar circumstances produce similar effects, we find many distinguished Englishmen strenuously advocating the adoption of an Educational system which has generated so disastrous results in other countries. If such legislation be good for England and the interests of Protestantism, of which such men con►ider. themselves heroic defenders, let it be so— we shall not dispute the advisability of a course which has no reference to vs — but, unfortnnately, our country has nob the right of self-legislation,' and we are at present reduced to the necessity of accepting or rendering abortive measures forced upon us by a legislature in which our country's rights are ignored and her voice is unheeded or mocked. There is, we fear, little chance of our having for some time such a solution of the Education^ Question as -will satisfy the just aspirations of the Irish people ; and wJint, -we may ask, is the reason that Protestants refuse to concede to us a religious system of Education ? We suppose the bug-bear of Papal power is continually frightening them, and in their terror they prefer taking refuge in the temple of the goddess of Reason to exposing themselves to contact with that dreadful undefined something which well-paid functionaries and imaginative novelists have taught them to abhor. Let the noisy Birmingham League and British intolerance iufiueuce the E ucational policy of statesmen, and Great Britain may soon find herself launched into so troubled waters that her treasures and the acquisitions of centuries may be lost in one dreadful tempest. Educate slaves, and they will make an effort to be free ; educate men as infidels, and they will endeavour to extirpate Christianity. Let England adopt for herself secular Education, and finally it may benefit us politically j whilst religiously we have often sustained heavier trials than such a crisis can possibly create. We could carefully mark the different stages in the onward progress of English, infidelity. We shall first see the scurrilous school of philosophers wirh satire for their weapons, almost idolized by the unthinking mobs and luxuriating in the bounteous gifts of popularity-seeking aristocrat?. Next shall appear growing feelings of discontent, and men will ask one auother why some go idly obout whilst others labour unceasingly to supply the means of enjoyment to men nothing better than themselves ; and finally shall be sought the remedy for every ill, when the mines, having poured forth their hundreds of thousands of dusky occupants, and the factories no longer manifesting national prosperity, th« dread torrent of revolution shall sweep over the country, bearing destruction to every institution venerable by time or sanctity. The goddess of Reason shallthen raise her head proclaiming her advent in conflagrations nourished by petroleum, and sacrificing human victims at the bhrine of her ideal, Liberty. Than, ye bloated aristocracy and bigots of Britain, erjoy the political principles of your own creation, and no longer dread the frightful phantom of Papal aggression. Is England then, determined to aitopt infidelity rather than allow Catholicism to flourish, all religious sects enjoying equal priv'leges ? England may adopt for herself godless Education wita the results we have attempted to depict, but she shall find herself as impotent to impose such a system on us as she lias beeu to pervert us from our Faith or eradicate the sentiments of Nationality fr-nn our hearts. It is a standing disgrace to "British legislation that the higher Education of more than a fourth of the Empire should be entirely unprovided for, and that the portion whose thirst for learning prompted them iv times vow happily past to incur the risk of tortures and imprisonment. If we, Catholics, are regarded as subjects of the Crown, let us have our due-proportion of the benefits, as we equally experience the inconveniences. Irishmen should make some determined effort to bring about a settlement of this long-debated question ; and if on this purely Irish question our country's voice is unheeded, all Irishmen might, we think, conscientiously join in the constitutional demand for an Irish Legislature which, free from the demoralisiug influences of prejudice and bigotry, would, guarding the religious liberty of all our people, confer on Irelahd a system of Education which- would soon revive her glorious* tide of " Island of Saints and Scholars."

The .Value op Coal.— An average Atlantio steamer consumes fifty tons of coal in twenty-four hours. Therefore, if five tons are sufficient to feed an ordinary grate in our dwellings duriog the entire year, the_coal consumed on board a steamer in one day would last a small family, buruiug one fire, ten years. If a load of coal is left out of doors, exposed to the weather, until it is burned up in one gratesay a month — it looses one-third of its heating quality. If a ton of coal is placed on the ground and left there, and unother is placed under a shed, the latter looses about twenty-five per cent of its heat* ing power, the former about forty -seven per cent. Hence it is. a great saving of coal to have it in a dry place, covered over, and oa all sides. The softer the coal the more it loses, because the most volatile and valuable constituents undergo a slow combustion.