THE EDUCATION QUESTION AT LYTTELTON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 272, 19 July 1878, Page 16

THE EDUCATION QUESTION AT LYTTELTON.

lou will be glad to hear that the Catholics of Lyttelton are determined to save their children from the danger to faith and morals inherent in the godless system of education lately established in this colony.

In union with our fellow Catholics throughout the world, wo fully appreciate the importance and necessity of a thoroughly sound Catholic education for our children, and in dutiful obedience to the advice of our beloved Bishop we are resolved to make every sacrifice required for the sacred and urgent purpose. For some time past the Itev. Father Donovan has been engaged (assisted by a number of gentlemen, who have shown that their hearts .ire in the right place,) in adopting means to meet the expenses required for the establishment and maintenance of a school ; and thank God, their efforts are about to be crowned with success, for in a few days we shall have an institution in which our children will not only receive secular instruction, but they will also be taught the fear and love of God ; and I feel sure that the Catholics of Lyttelton will ]om me in sentiments of gratitude to God, and to the gentlemen who have exerted themselves so much in forwarding the great cause Ihis is our answer, and an emphatic one it is, to the calumny so frequently repeated by our enemies, that the majority of intelligent Catholics are in favour of secular education, and that none' are advocates of purely Catholic schools except the cleray and the ignorant laity. I< acts notorious to all prove that this falsehood is absolutely baseless. Everywhere throughout New Zealand Catholics whilst paying taxes, which the Government squander in endeavouring to undermine their faith, are contributing generously to the maintenance of Catholic schools where it is possible to do so. But what do our enemies care for facts which they do not like ? Ihey ignore them, and not only that, but assert that which is not 2 It is very hard upon the Catholics of New Zealand to be called upon to support schools of their own, and to be obliged to support other schools for persons wealthier than themselves. It is a hardship and the State oujvht not to call upon us to do it. But still, great as the hardship is, when we consider that our children receive in the Catholic schools what they cannot receive elsewhere ; when we consider that our own hopes for heaven are bound up in these children, and that the education they require they can receive only in the Catholic school, and no where else, we must put up with this disadvantage and make thin sacrifice among many others to gain heaven. Surely our opponents must soon come to see that it is sheer persecution to force us to pay for what we will not have, and for what we not only abhor, because it is the fruit of injustice, and tyranny, but also because we believe it to be most injurious to the well-being of the community. • Lytteltonian.