RESULTS OF SECULAR EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 81, 14 November 1874, Page 5

RESULTS OF SECULAR EDUCATION.

Some of these have been well described in a speech recently made by the Coadjutor Archbishop in Sydney, on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of St. Benedict's School, Paramatta street, in that city. We shall boirow our figures entirely from His Grace, and take the liberty, of prefixing to them some passages from the speech. In the course of his eloquent discourse, the Archbishop spoke of the policy of various States and peoples, whose great object is the destruction of the influence of the Church, and said : —

They -would find that those who had no belief in religion at all had been very glad to make use of all this argument to keep religion out of the schools altogether. If they went to Russia, they would find that the Government, in order that they might convert or pervert the poor down-trodden Polish people, introduced their Rationalism, into the schools. There was also a party in the States of Geimany, who were only too glad, as far as they were able, to introduce a school system which upset belief in religion altogether. And if they went to Belgium they would find the solidaires, or men professing to believe in no religion, who had endeavored to expunge every vestige of Christianity out of the schools ; and the same thing had occurred in Austria, tv-hero men, trampling on the Concordat, tried to remove the principles of Christ out of the minds of the people. Coming back to our own country, it was very natural that they should look at the cause of this movement. It was Baid by those engaged in it "We do love religion, our religion is the right one." But they did not seek to establish it. They did not say, Let us expunge the other creeds, and let us have our own religion taught. They said, Let us do away with religion, let iis have secular instruction, let us fit men for this world, let us do what we can to make them good citizens ; but as for heaven and hell, God and Christ — let us leave that to the priest. The great International Society had endeavored to bring these principles to bear upon the populations of the world. The cardinal points of the international or socialistic party in Switzerland were contained in these words, and their echo was found here — compulsory and gratuitous education up to the completion of the fourteenth year of the child's age, separation of the Church from the State, and also of the schools from the Church. An education league had been introduced into Franco by the solidaires. The principle object of these men waß to prevent men and women, either in life or at death, from receiving the sacraments of religion. The third article of their statute was, that neither politics nor religion should have any part in education. They sought to build up ft new society, based solely upon learning and instruction. One of the prizes given by a society belonging to this association of men for the spread of education was a prize for good conduct awarded to a daughter of a free-thinker, who had never attended any place of worship. Coming to America, so much talked about, it was the samo as in other parts of tho world. The commencenieut of tho system of secular education there could be traced to a woman, Fanny Wright, who flourished about the year 1825. She married a Frenchman, and she and he endeavored to introduce into America a society something like the Italian Carbonari — a. society formed in order that they might \indermine religion — in order that they might do away irith the iudissolubility of the marriage tie — in order that they might do away with the belief in God and the immortality of the soul — in order that men's and women's earthly happiuess might be promoted without let or biderance — and they might be able so far to foxget the other world as to throw themselve* away on this. The three great enemies to their system,- they coni sidered, were — religion firßt, marriage second, and private property third j aud in place of them they were going to substitute for religion, science ; for private property} community of goods ; and for marriage, community of wives. This lady, with her husband, introduced a, secret society into the United States of America, which at last got a great hold upon a good many men, and they worked this principle of secular education in order to introduce the dissolubility of marriage, the abolition of private property, and the upsetting of all religion, and the consequence of this is that we read there are 25,000,000 of people in America who do not profess any distinct religion whatever ; and the secular public system has so degraded and debased the population, that men of thought, and men of purity, men who desire tho good of the people, do not know on which side to, turn to remedy the almost universal system of corruption. The ' Boston Pilot' of April 6, 1872, says: — "That the devil is in the public schools, raging- and rampauti there among the pupils, as well as among tho teachers, no one can well doubt who has sent a child into them as guiltlesß of evil, of unclean thoughts, as pure as a newly-fallen snow flake, and had him come homo in a short time contaminated, almost beyond belief, by the vileness and filth which ho has seen and hoard and learnt there." A distinguished Frenchman, Professor Agassiz, says : — " A large proportion of the prostitutes of Boston trace their fall to the influences that they met with in public schools." He was ashamed, as a Catholic Bishop, to bring before tbom, tho words thaljaro mado usq of in

that book with regard to the most frightful vices that seem to grow with a growth irresistible where thore is no religion to place its foot upon thafc vile monster— the passion of man. governor Brown, addressing not long ago the National Teachers Convention m St. Louis, said .— " It is a very customary tteclaration to pronounce that education is the groat safeguard of republics against the decay of virtue and tbc reign of immorality yofc tJie tact can scarcely bear out the proposition. The highest civilizations, both ancient and modern, have sometimes been the most flagitious. Now-a-days, certainly, your prime rascals have been educated rascals. In order that their good friends might not imagine that he was against enlightenment— for he wished to opon the door as ■wide as possible— in order that he might not be misunderstood — he was was going to bring forward an argument to show that he was not against instruction, when it was directed by religion. But he would no more think" of imparting mere secular instruction without religion, than he would place a minie rifle in the hands of a boy ■who did not know how to use it, and trust himself hi his presence. It ■was not^ possible for a more secular instruction, in what was called the three E's, to fit persons to fight the great battle with the passions of 3nan ; but it was possible with the combination of instruction with Tehgion to fit them for that battle, and to provo this he would bring forward a few figures— only a few, for he -vould not go into statistics, ■Which, nobody ever read. la France the men and women both were educated — the men in the public schools, and without religion, where the priests have not been allowed to bring in their influence ; and the women are educated principally under the influence of religious persons, and religion is brought into their schools. If they compared the record of crime committed by men and women they would find very curious results. The men were far more criminal than the women, and what -was most striking and curious was that they were more depraved in proportion as they were more highly educated without religion, while the women, the more highly they were educated with religion, became the more pure and holy. These returns wore made up for eighteen years, from tho year 1829 to 1846, and criminals were divided into three classes— persons who were called ignorant— -that is, who could neither read nor write ; the instructed formed the second class— tliat is, those who could read and write more or less well; and the third class, the better instructed, who had received a higher education than the primary education. This record bJiows that amongst the ignorant, who could neither read nor write there were before the courts, out of every 100,000, not less than 751 persons. Of the instructed, in the second place, out of every 100 000 there were more before the courts— there were 942 ; and of the better instructed, out of every 100,000 there were 1289 before the courts. So they saw that this instruction without religion was putting dangerous weapons into the hands of men without teaching them how to use them, and resulted in then- doing damage to themselves and others ; and if we could only find out how much evil they did, we should find out the consequence of keeping God's influence and power out of the minds and hearts of the young. Now, for the women under religious instruction, and under the influence of the pure lives and holy teaching of women who dedicate themselves to the service of Jesus Christ. Among the ignorant, out of every 100 000 instead of 751 there were only 193 brought before the courts ; of the slightly instructed, instead of 942 there were only 152 out of every 100,000 brought before tho courts ; and out of the better instructed out of every 100,000, instead of 1289, there were only 6G brought before the courts. So they found that in proportion as 'they received instruction combined with the teachings of holy religion they had been pure and holy, while the more they received mere secular instruction so they became more and more depraved. He did not speak against secular instruction, bufc he said, "Bring in more religion. If your tea is not sweet enough, put more sugar into it."