The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1878. VERY STRIKING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 263, 17 May 1878, Page 11

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1878. VERY STRIKING.

HE Minister of Education lately told his constituents that the Government intended to devote, during the course of next year, £100,000 to the erection of new school buildings. In addition, to this, the ordinary expenses of godless education will amount to at least £200,000. How much of this money do the Catholics of New Zealand contribute ? A stranger hearing of the way in which the New Zealand Government treats its Catholic subjects in. reference to education would certainly say that surely these contributed nothing to the maintenance of public godless education. But it is not so. Of this sum of three hundred thousand pounds the Catholics of New Zealand arc compelled, by a tyrannical Act of Parliament, to contribute at least £30,000. Thus, New Zealand Catholics are compelled to pay in one year £80,000 to maintain a godless system of education from which they derive no benefit whatever, which pxclades every Catholic book, and every scrap of Catholic literature from its halls ; practically closes these halls against Catholic children and Catholic teachers, and absolutely ignores, even as an historical fact, the very existence of the Catholic Church. Nor is this all ; the New Zealand Government, which so unmercifully fleeces its Catholic subjects to promote anti-Catholic and godless education, absolutely refuses to give one shilling, even of their oavii money, to help Catholics in supporting their own Christian and Catholic schools. In every way possible the legislation of this colony, on the subject of education, endeavours to injure, degrade, and exasperate Catholics. But not only does Government tax us to maintain anti- | Catholic and godless schools, not only does it positively refuse to aid vs — out of our own monies, in the great efforts and sacrifices we are making to promote real education, but it actually punishes us for daring to be freemen, and hardy enough to establish Catholic schools. And every new effort we make is met by a new and determined act of hostility on the part of the Government. Godless schools are built and maintained by the money of the people at large. Godless schools are exempted from all taxes. Every thing that a Government can do, even to recklessness, is done to encourage and permanently establish in our midst, this greatest of all curses, godless education. But Christian schools arc in every way discouraged, refused their legitimate share of public funds, and taxed without mercy. Take Dunedin as an example. In this city Catholics have excellent schools, attended by more than 600 children. They built these themselves, bought the sites on which they stand, have enlarged them recently, maintain them at their own sole cost, and what is the return made them by Government for all their generous efforts to promote the real good of the public ? Here it is. Yesterday the Bishop was served with notice demanding more than £30 city rates for these buildings ! This is only a specimen of what is going on throughout New Zealand — this is the way the Government and the majority of the people of New Zealand love and encourage education !

And this insane hatred of Catholic schools and education continues, notwithstanding the feai'ful results jvh.ch, as experience proves, are the outcome of godless education, and k a similar system of education in other countries. Again arid again have we called attention to the failure of a similar system in the United States of America, and again and again has our warning been derided by certain public writers in Dunedin. It is not long ago, since a certain person in this city, unable to elude our figures, declared that the failure of godless education in the United States of America must be attributed to the foreign element introduced into that country by-immigration, and that the illiterates were mostly, if not altogether immigrants, and for the greater part Irish. No doubt it was grateful to this writer's feelings to have a fling at the Irish ; and to charge home upon them faults, failings, and crimes, whether ill-founded or not.

For the information, of our readers we subioin some extracts from the " White Conquest," by Hepw.oiith Dixon. " Americans, who know their country as I knqw my house and > garden, tell me ;that" the young generation : of Americans are growing iip more ignorant than\their fathers thirty yeiirs ago. In 1870, the number of persons in America who could not read was reported as more than four millions five hundred thousand.; of those who could not write more than five million six hundred thousand souls. Such facts," continues HErwoRTH Dixox, " are not explained by the theory of a great rush of illiterates from Europe, or even from Asia. Some illiterates come from Liverpool, Hamburg, and HongKong, no doubt, but they are not enough to darken the tables of illiteracy very much. The German immigrants, as a rule, can read and write. The Mongol immigrants, as a rule, can read and write. I have never, seen a male Chinese who could not read, and very few who could not write in their own tongue." . . " Out of the five million six hundred thousand persons in the republic who cannot read and write .only three-quarters of a million are of foreign birth." .... " Such figures stun the mind. On looking into details, the enquirer is staggered to perceive that the older and richer States are no better educated than the rest." . . "To sum up all. The native Americans -who can not read and wite amount to nearly five millions." Vol. 11. p.p. 353, 4, 5, 6. Such is the result in a literary point of view of the godless system of education in America, which our wiseacres are bent on establishing in New Zealand. Let us now see what, according to the same author, arc its moral and social effects. " Three years ago the Bureau of Education printed a paper on the vital statistics of America, •which passed like an icebolt through the hearts of patriotic Americans. This paper showed that the birth-rate is declining in America from year to year ; not in one State only but in every State. The decline is constant and universal ; the same in Arkansas and Alabama as in Massachusetts and Connecticut, in Michigan and Indiana as in Pennsylvania and New York. The rate was higher in 1800 than in 1820 ; higher in 1820 than in 1840 ; higher in 1840 than in 1860. The birth-rate is admitted to be larger among the immigrants than among the natives ; yet the average thus increased by strangers is lower than that of any country in Europe, not excepting the birth-rate of France in the worst days of Louis Napoleon." Vol. IL, p.p. 309, 10. In the first vol., p. 166, Mr. Dixon says : "Divorce is cheap and easily obtained, some legal firms are known for their alacrity in getting through such troubles. c Eesidence not required,' is one of the hints thrown out in circulars and advertisements to parties about to bo divorced. The application mostly comes from the woman's side, and any allegation is enough to satisfy the judge." ... At page 168 we find the following." " But female crime, especially when a lady takes to shooting her friends and lovers in the streets, or on the ferries, pays a journal to report the incident at greater length. A pistoler like Laura Fair is worth a thousand copies to an evening paper. Laura is a heroine. Tried for murder and acquitted on the ground of emotional insanity, she lives in style, gives balls, and speculates in stock. Few ladies are so often named at dinner tables, and the public journals note her doings as the movements of a duchess might be noted at Mayfair. Laura's torch has lighted many a fair sister on the way to murder ; yet in spite of this increase iv female crime, no woman's life has yet been given in California to public justice." Here are a few of the facts which are the result of godless, secular education in the United States of America. What is to be thought of the wisdom, or even dedency, of legislators, ■who can find no higher and bettei standard for their imitation than this fearful system of education without God and reli-

gion, which has resulted in insecurity of life and property Jiu America, and which threatens as its consequences the extin<|tion of the white race in the United States ? The people of this colony, if wise, ought to unite and compel their representatives to repeal the law of last Session, and to establish in its place a system by means of which all denominations should be encouraged to maintain Christian schools, as lias been done, with such cheering results, by the Legislature and Government of Great Britain. Otherwise this generation will not pass away without experiencing the sad effects of purely secular education.