THE MORNING HERALD IN REPLY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 251, 22 February 1878, Page 7

THE MORNING HERALD IN REPLY.

In two elaborate articles our morning contemporary endeavours to disprove the assertions of Bishop Moran "and Father Hennebery on the results of secular education in America. The writer arrays statistics and produces figures in a variety of combinations, which seem to prove the result he wishes to impress — that crime is more largely associated with the Roman Catholic religion than with other forms of Christianity, and that secular education is the panacea. The statistics are carefully collected and well applied, and the logical conclusion arrived at is intended to be crashing, but the argument is that of a special pleader who, having taken a brief, views only his side of the case. Such a subject requires to be treated in a more impartial manner. A fallacy underlies the whole argument entirely overlooked by the writer. The statement is that, in Australia, New Zealand, and America, the Roman Catholic element contributes the largest proportion of criminals, and, therefore, its members are the worst -morally trained in these countries. This reasoning takes no account of other circumstances which are more important than the form of religion. Take German or Northern Tyrol, which is intensely Catholic, and where all the training is religious. There crime is almost unknown. All men arc free, most landowners, and perf ect equality exists. The valour and virtues of this people are proverbial. Britanny, in France, is another instance in point. The Rhine provinces of Germany, which are Catholic, do not differ from the Protestant German States. The truth is that crime and ignorance in Ireland are deeply associated with a population degraded by centuries of misgovernment in the past. A people deprived of their tribal lands, with a proscribed religion, harrassed by wars and partial extermination, takes long to rise to the level of those happy countries where oppression weighed lightly in comparison, The large numbers of Irish who emigrated took with them the dreadful heritage of old wrongs ; and it is to this cause, and not to the religion, that the crime found associated with those professing the Roman Catholic faith is duo. That so clever a writer should make such a blunder is a proof how little sound judgment can be looked for in a partizan. An exuberant imagination may have led the worthy Father into inaccuracies, but in deploring the absence of any religious training in State schools he only expressed the views of very many outside of his own denomination. It is matter of grave import whether education totally free from moral training is an unmixed benefit. We venture to believe that few think so. How to give this moral training as part of a State education is the difficult question. To those who give it without State aid, even if associated with dogmas which they consider essential, all honour is due. The best citizen is he who is hoth morally and intellectually trained, and for State objects the one is as important as the other. Old Greek education neglected no side of character in the training of youth. The education of the intellect is better than ignorance, but the education of the moral nature also demands attention. We take it, put roughly, this is the drift of Father Hennebery't remarks, which are not unworthy of attention. — Morning