THE BOARD OF EDUCATION IN WELLINGTON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 178, 25 August 1876, Page 13

THE BOARD OF EDUCATION IN WELLINGTON.

(To the Editor of the New Zealand Tablet.)

Sib, — We have recourse to the N. Z. Tablet when we think justice is not done us by local papers. Such is my case; your readers will judge of it. Some twelve days ago I sent to the ' New Zealand Times' for publication a letter concerning some doings of the Education Board of Wellington, which I considered quite unfair. Insertion was refused ; the Editor would not condescend to notice it. My grievance was against our Board of Education ; I will explain it as briefly as possible. In December last two Catholic ladies received the appointment of teachers at the school of Kaiwarawara, in the vicinity of Wellington. Six months after they were dismissed. It was a sad blow to them. I went to make inquiries about the reasons of their dismissal, and found some officials most willing to oblige me. A report was asked for and obtained from the Inspector on the case of these two ladies. What was the gist of that report ? The Inspector stated that he had visited the Kaiwarawara school, and that he had found the children disorderly. There was one, he said, who behaved very disrespectfully ; he whistled with the leaves of his book without interference on the part of the teachers. " Therefore," adds the Inspector, " the only course left to me was to recommend the dismissal of the teachers to the Board, particularly after their failure in conducting previously a school at Sandon, in the Eangitikei District." This report is certainly plausible, but with all respect to the Inspector, I must say that it is far from being grounded on substantial facts. Is it true that the school at Sandon was a failure ? I have been told the contrary by people who seemed to me well informed on matters connected with that school; and particularly by a gentleman connected with the press of the district. I am at liberty to say that I know a person who had the honor of a conversation with the Inspector on the same subject, and I can certify that he did not allude at all to the Sandon school not having been well conducted; he only complained of some utterance of the ladies at their leaving Sandon, as if they, being Catholics, had been removed to please some Protestants of the district. Now, as to the truth of the report concerning the Kaiwarawara School, I have seen testimonials signed by parents, and by the members of the local committee, I believe by all save one, witnessing to the efficiency of the school, and to the attention and punctuality of the teaching. The Inspector says the children were disorderly at the time of his visit. Well, I have ascertained that the boy whom he singled out as most unruly, is the son of that very man who not only refused to

sign the testimonial, but had expressed his determination of not having his children taught by Papists. I ask, are such remarks on the part of a parent calculated to conciliate the respect of children to masters who happen to be Catholics? In fact that parent, according to report, is the very man, who with one or two members of the Education Board brought about the removal of the two ladies. The local committee of the Kaiwarawara had nothing to do with it ; they were entirely taken by surprise. What followed the change? Did the school improve? Was improvement intended by the Board? The sequel will tell. They appointed an invalid. That invalid appeared only three times at at school in three months, and had to be replaced temporarily at least by an assistant teacher, not residing in the locality, but taking the second train from Wellington to Kaiwarawara at a quarter to 10, a late hour to begin school. Has the number of pupils increased ? Certainly not. It has considerably diminished. Mark, when the two Catholic teachers took the school, they found it almost reduced to nothing. At the early visit of the Inspector there were no more than three pupils present ; at his last and unexpected visit there were more that 45 children in the room. It was crowded, because of the sniallness of the apartment. Did not that circumstance account for the disorder of which the visitor complained? Well, now, instead of 45 pupils, there are only 22. Yes, and counted as they were by a careful observer on Friday, the 28th July, which happened to be an extremely fine day. I will remark that among the scholars there is a girl of fifteen years, quite a woman, the very daughter of the man who would not have his children instructed by a Catholic lady. It is strange to have girls of fifteen years placed under the tutorship of young men with the sanction or winking of the Board after the lesson taught by experience. Boards of Education will even expel ladies who are most useful, and without blemish of character, to make room for favorites of their own. The doings of the Board of Wellington in the case which has been the subject of this letter, is quite in keeping with the tenor of their general conduct ; they are arbitrary and despotic. The Provincial Education Act enabled them to subsidise other schools than those placed under them. The Catholic schools for boys and girls seemed to be entitled to the subsidy on account of their long existence and success without any public aid. The Board ruled otherwise, unless they were put under their control, and would submit to their terms. Some time ago the same Board proposed to build a large central school for the benefit of the Catholics, doing away with their free schools, provided they should get from the Catholics a lease of the ground on which the new building was to be erected. The Catholics acceded to their demand ; suddenly the Board felt Jtheir conscience troubled, and they withdrew their word. Public money melts in their hands ; that makes them proud and over-bearing. Lately the Provincial Government being animated with the best intention, announced that they had J82,500 at their disposal, but that they intened to appropriate for the Catholics i>soo to help them towards the erection of a costly school building. The game Board refused sternly to acquiesce in the views of the Government. Had they not been hostile to Catholics they might have sanctioned the grant, inasmuch as the law allows them to subsidise other schools than theirs. But they were almost unanimously absolute and persistent in their refusal. One of them was so furiously alarmed that he entered his protest against the measure, and made an appeal to the General Government to prevent such a calamity as that of helping the Catholics in their undertaking. Is that fairness or justice ? Is it conformable to the letter and spirit of the law ? It is simply ignorance and bigotry on the part of those who pretend to give a right direction to the instruction of the youth of the country. They ought to know that bigotry is the very opposite of education, because it shrinks the soul, freezes the heart, and teaches to hate those who differ from us in the matter of religion. The la3t link of connection of the Catholics with the Education Board was cut assunder by the final severance from them of the Catholic school at Wanganui. They asked the Catholic clergyman of that town whether he would agree that every religious minister should be admitted into the school-room to teach his tenets to children who might belong to his persuasion. To this the Catholic pastor could not assent. How could he reconcile himself to the fact of his school being converted into a sort of new pandemonium where blasphemous and most contradictory doctrines would be propounded. Protestants have nothing to apprehend, all religious opinions, even those which are diametrically opposed, are still Protestant opinions, and may satisfy Protestants ; but Catholics are consistent, they have fixed and revered principles of faith, and cannot partake of such confusion and absurdity. I have done. No doubt I have expatiated too long on my case, but my conscience prompted me to take it up, and I could not but express by the New Zealand Tablet to my fellow Catholics the wrongs that I resented concerning the unfair treatment of two Catholic ladies by the Education Board, and redress was shut against me by the bigoted ' Times' Besides the grievances of the Catholics over the colony are composed of small cases, which in the aggregate amount to great injustice. The conclusion I draw is : Let us be unanimous in repudiating mixed national, that is anti-Catholic schools; let us support the Catholic Press of New Zealand, which is yet an infant, but may grow into powerful manhood, and become competent to militate victoriously against error, hypocrisy, and tyranny. — I am, &c , A Catholic op Wellington.