THE NECESSITY OF SELF-RELIANCE AND COLONIAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 274, 2 August 1878, Page 11

THE NECESSITY OF SELF-RELIANCE AND COLONIAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE SUPPORT OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

Oblige me by handing the enclosed small remittance to Bishop Jttoran on account of the Oamaru Catholic School Committee. # 1 am glad to see that the Catholics of Oamaru, after the example of their co-religionists m Dunedin and Wellington, are about to solve the vexed education question so far as they are concerned on the soundest and most satisfactory of all principles-the principle of selfreliance. Th.jir Protestant neighbours must be unusually sincere and consistent in their professions of respect for the rights of conscience, or the Evening Mail of that place must possess an unusual amount moral courage But it is evidently coming to this and the division on Mr. Curtis motion as well as the tone of the Oamaru Evening Mail snows it, that religious, sensible, and just Protestants are gradually moving round to the Catholic view of public education, in spite of all the secularising influence of the Government, the Press, and the popular majority who now support them on the education question. Protestants may go with Catholics on this question without any compromise of principle on either side. What Catholics ask from Government for themselves they ask for men of all creeds. We are, in tact, fighting for all Christian creeds when we fight for religious eaucation and justice as we are now doing in opposition to secularists. -me English Protestant Press are now driven to admit from recent paintiu events m Germany that socialism is the natural outcome of secularism m education ; and socialism is the worst, or one of the worst forms of impiety and civil disloyalty combined. Whether brovernment aid our schools or not, we must mainly rely on our own eitorts to establish, and maintain as well as establish, efficient schools for our children. If we fail to do so it is neither for want of money nor good schoolmasters. The Catholic body have plenty of both A correspondent lately wont into a calculation of the amount of money spent annually by Catholics upon a seductive luxury, which, unhappily rLTn ™ed innocently. He was probably not far out in his A™™T g n «?S c SUI ? Was incredi bly large. So much for money. Among Catholics there are plenty of able and skilful schoolmasters. Even independent of the religious teaching orders who for many reasons are to be preferred when they can be got! xae present able and zealous inspector of Government schools for this district— Mr. Sullivan- is a Catholic. He was once a Catholic schoolmaster in Auckland I understand. While so acting he was well remunerated and his salary was guaranteed to him by certain of the leading Catholics m the place. This is the true principle of permanently securing the services of a good schoolmaster. Pay him liberally ana assure him of permanent appointment, and keep him to his engagement. What can be expected from a school when the master is miserably remunerated, liable to be at any time starved out of his piace, and is at liberty to quit whenever self-interest or whim may ww°i 7m7 m t( V leave ; How man y Catholic schools have been in that wietcbed position ; how many are so even now ? If Catholics, instead lSr? g f uch aild so often ' and * mist sa y so J ustl y- a ? aiu st smnn « 1 1 ? • Government toward, them in matters educational, would set their own shoulders to the wheel, and u^e their own resources in men and money, to have good schools of their own everywhere it would be well for them and their children. For that end they must organise extensively. Local and desultory efforts will not do now the enemy is too strong. We must consider that Protestants have a conscience and a sense of duty no less than Catholics. If they think that the secular system of education is preferable on public grounds we may regret it, but we have no right to censure them severely for their decision. Even though, according to Catholic ideas, the system be manifestly unfair or dangerous to faith and morality. That some support a system of public education exclusively secular out of hostility to Christianity is no doubt true. But that is not the motive J. believe which influences the great majority of secularists here • among whom there are many as sincere Christians as Catholics themselves. btiU it is deeply to be deplored that any Christian man should be tound advocating or tacitly permitting a system of public education which the enemies of Christianity zealously support as most likely to .advance the cause of infidelity, and which is found by espcrienc'b to piomote first an indifference and then a contempt for all revealed religion whatever, and last of all a disbelief in God himself. The late rope assured the Christian world that the civil Government of Italy was appointing schoolmasters who openly avowed their infidel or even atheistic principles, and gloried in them." It is often very difficult to fK T?\ en VZ al motives for their P oli cy. They avow apart but not the whole of the reasons of their actions. My own impression is that a reeling of dread for the advancing power of the Catholic Church and a wish to keep her under, though not avowed, is at the bottom of all this zeal for secularism in education. If the Government wished merely to secure a good secular education for the whole population, irrespective of class or creed they would surely adopt Mr. Curtis' amendment. That would make Sir ixeorge Grey s Bill identical in principle with the Education Bill passed by the Imperial Parliament for England. This is " payment by secular results." Any school could then claim Government aid on certain terms, provided the Inspector reported that the secular proficiency of the pupils came up to the standard presented by Government Oould anything be fairer or more reasonable than this? Yet Sir George Grey and the " liberal " Press s&jnonplacct ; we won't have it Liberal indeed ! By their rejecting so liberal, fair, and reasonable a principle as this, we must infer that they have some other end in view, by their Bill, than the mere secular education of the massessome end which they do not wish to avow. To secure power and patronage for the minister of the day, and to aim a death blow at the Catholic Church by the extinction of Catholic schools, are possibly the objects which the advocates of Sir George Grey's Education Bill have in view. Over and above securing secular education to the people what are we to infer from Sir George Grey's refusing to say yea or nay to Mr Curtis amendment? I think it placed him in a fix. He was too the LibeSir 7 ' aUd a&aid *° SaJ yes ~ afraid of his Popularity with

There is no reason to believe that the Now Zealand Anglican clergy or Protestant clergy generally axe satisfied with the present secular system of Government Education. They naturally would fain have religious teaching in their schools, and Government aid too But; they dare not agitato for this, principally because if they did so they would be strengthening the claims of Catholics for the same f e . nefit : „ ma y b e another reason. They fear probably that the laity or their respective communities, who go in for cheap sehoolina, would not support them in that agitation if they were to attempt it. Ihey thus might be left in the lurch and expose the want of sympathy between them and their flocks on so vital a matter as education bUcncc and a passive acquiescence for tbe present to this objectionable system is their policy. Protestant clergy, like Protestant politicals, too often are men of expediency rather than of principle. Bishop Hatfield is a noble exception. But what fruit has resulted irom bis emphatic denunciation of the Government school system ? ilis people have made no sign of united approval so far as I know Yet we cannot suppose his words have been without effect entirely In a question like this the Catholic clergy and nil their people are emphatically of "one heart and one mind." There are "no divisions among them," or none worth naming, on that subject It is well it should be so, for to ua the question of schools and education is a vital one. It is one of life or death— of weakness and strength— the Catholic school is part of the Catholic Church, and inseparable from it. The manner in which Catholics support their schools is a test of the sincerity of their attachment to their religion, and of their spiritual loyalty to the Holy See. A Catholic school is not only a seat of secular learning, but a nursery of Catholic piety, and to the more advanced pupils, a school of politics. With poorly supported and inefficient Catholic schools, Catholics never can occupy that position in the state to which by right they have a claim. Let us of the laity then form a general committee or Board of Catholic Education for the entire colony under the episcopate, and have a general educational fund for mutual .aid, and let Government do what they please. They will have done us an immense good if they have taught us the lesson of self-reliance, and stimulated our hitherto languid efforts in the cause of Catholic education and Catholic schools. Sir George Grey some years ago pronounced an eloquent eulogium. on the late Mr. O'Conncll as the deliverer of Irish Catholics from unjust and cruel laws, directed against their faith, yet he has endorsed an Education Bill tending to destroy all Catholic schools in this colony. Explain who can. Sir George is a man of the noblest sentiments. Unfortunately for us he does not always act up to the sentiments he professes, Laic Auckland, May, 1878.