TRIUMPH OF THE FACTORY OVER THE SCHOOL.—CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 82, 21 November 1874, Page 8

TRIUMPH OF THE FACTORY OVER THE SCHOOL.— CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' SCHOOLS.

With reference to your remarks on " Factory Regulations" in a late issue, the following extract from a report of Mr. Marshall, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, may be quoted :—: —

" During the past year more than one very painful example of the inevitable triumph of factories over schools, whenever they come into competition, has fallen under my observation. At Cheadle, in Staffordshire, where there are very beautiful schools erected by the munificent liberality of the late Karl of Shrewsbury, and where, two years ago, there was a very large attendance of children, attracted by teaching of an unusually high ordei, I found at my last visit that the numbers had dwindled away to less than one-half. The explanation will be anticipated. In the interval a ' factory' had bsen established, and the energetic proprietor had gained an easy victory over tlie devoted but defenceless teachers. Wages had made short work of education."

All the inspectors of Government schools at homo dwell in their reports on the apathy or indifference of parents of the poorer classes to the education of their children. No remedy, in their opinion, exists for this evil except compulsory attendance. Are we not much in the same case here ? Such a frame of mind seems utterly incompatible ■with religious and moral progress, but must tend to irreligion and vice. la England the greed of parents allows the children to remain but a short time at school, and this evil is already increasing. The school inspectors tell us that in England Government schools are not making the rising generation more steady in their conduct, more truthful, more though tful, more obedient to parents and superiors, more contented with their station of life. It is much to bo feared that even Catholic children are not making much, if any, progress in these ■virtues. They must necessarily be tainted with the common vices of the great body of the people, with the spirit of the age, in fact — a spirit of insubordination, self-will, and Belf-indulgence. la that point of •view, the boundless wealth ocd commercial prosperity of England are proving the greatest possible impediments to the progress of her people in that heroic virtue which alone can render any nation truly great and respectable. The influence of the Catholic Church alone can successfully meet such an evil. When she has fair play she will remedy it. Since she has the bulk of her children in her own schools, under her own authority and training, she will surely make something good out of them in time. If many, too many, Catholic children have a godless home, they have at least a day school in which they will Wrn to know and practice their religion. Without saying anything to detract from the merits of the many efficient and zealous Catholic lay teachers, there seems to me little doubt about the superiority of religious teaching orders. A community or organised association of teachers are more likely to be powerful than single laymen, more especially when we

c insider that the members of such teaching orders follow the business of teaching as a religious vocation, and nob from any worldly motive. The main design of Christian teachers is to make good Christians, rather than fine scholars crammed with secular knowledge. The great fault of our modern schoolmasters seems to be attempting to teach the scholars too much and too many things to fill their memory with facts, and to pay too little attention to train them to good, moral, religious, and intellectual habits, so as to fit them for self-education in after life. A boy trained to educate himself is more likely to do well than one filled to the brim with school lessons or facts only. There is great reason to fear that much of the good which the poorer claw of Catholic children derive from ordinary day school training is counter* acted by the bad influences under which they are brought in their godless homes, in the factories, and on the streets. Mere ordinary schoolmasters could hardly provide against such terrible evil influences as these in such au age as ours, hence the necessity of such teaching orders 1 as the Brothers of the Christian schools in all large centres of population, both for the sake of public morals and the special instincts of the church. Even Protestant public writers bear strong testimony to the great good the Christian Brothers do by their schools wherever established, and admit that the secular knowledge they impart is highly satisfactory. The Christian Brothers in Europe are far too few for the educational wants of the age. Would it not be possible to form a branch of the order in this colony out of all the dioceses, to aid existing schools, if not to establish schools of their own ? In France they do both. The remaikable fact that a London Government school very recently was nearly deserted by the children, being sent to a Catholic school near it, might encourage the hope that in this colony schools on the principle of those of the Christian Brothers might prove formidable rivals to the Government schools, even for Protestants. The bulk of Protestant parents have a sort of horror of purely secular schools. However godless a parent may be himself, he does not relish the thought of his child being reared without religious feelings and influences in a godless or purely secular Government school, where no prayer is said by master or pupil from week's end to week's end. Protestant parents know that when their child is attending a Catholic school his religion will not be interfered with. Catholic parents have not always the same assurance when circumstances force them to send tl#ir children to a Protestant school, though in some oases they may. Atjckxaxd.