Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 315, 2 May 1879, Page 1

Current Topics. AT HOME & ABROAD.

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HE QitarterlyZßerievreT, whom we quoted last week, goes \ on to say that it is not only the burden of the great exfree education, which, it will be remembered, , he sets down as amounting in rates alone to £0,750,000 i with the possibility of rising to £13,000.000, that he fears buttfttifciftAfe the reaction which it might produce against education. " But it is not only the increase in the Parliamentary grant, and the more expensive machmcry of School Boards which call for attention. To a certain degree this increase of expense is probably unavoidable." But School Boards have misconceived their functions, and in many cases, disregarded the first principles of economy. Their members seem often to have considered that lavish expenditure added to their importance. Unnecessary schools have been built, and they have been too expensively constructed." But above all, the fees have in many cases been unduly lowered. Abundant and even lavish expenditure in building thoroughly good schools may be well excused, but expense incurred by an undue lowering of fees is a simple and unmitigated evil. It lowers the sense of parental responsibility ; it burdens the ratepayer ;it checks all voluntary effort." In London it has been proved, and is generally complained of, that the children of well-to-do parents are being attracted to Board Schools by the exaction there of merely nominal fees. " Three years ago the rate in London was 3d.: now it is fid., in 1881 it will certainly be 9d. The ratepayer has an unquestionable right to demand that no part of a burden like this shall be spent in indiscriminate alms-giving. There is no aspect in which a policy of this kind can appear j usrifiablc, except to one who mixes up political aims with the dischargo of a public function : and it is idle to suppose that its consequence, sooner or Inter Mil] not be a distrust of School Boards as agencies of political propagandised at the ratepayers' expense." During lust session a member called attention to " another subject of much importance in connection with School Board expenditure, and the statistic? given were such tbat we are surprised tbat public indignation on the subject has not already been more strongly expressed. Many School Boards hare established savings-banks in connection with their schools, and it appears that the cases are very frequent indeed in which considerable sums stand to the credit of children, whose parents claim, and obtain, exemption from tlse payment of school fees. And this, we aro told, is to encourage thrift and independence !" A serious power is claimed by School Boards nnder tiie regulations as to ' extra' subjects. An instance of this is found in the Bradford Board, which has established two schools for the purpose of giving a ' superior elementary education.' " The fees were raised above those charged in ordinary elementary schools, but yet kept just within the maximum allowed by the code (9d. a week). By this contrivance, well-to-do tradesmen of Bradford are enabled, by the help of other ratepayers there, and of tax payers all over the country, to get for 9d. such an education for their children as would otherwise cost three or four times that amount. When the Legislature provided for the payment of feeg in cases of absolute poverty, did it intend to lighten the cost of a ' superior' education to ►+''« well-to-do?" And now we come to the schoolmasters. We recognise their energy, earnestness, and zeal, aud the high qualities to be fenind both in the higher branches of the profession and the ' elementary teachers." Of the former we have little to say. . They seem perhaps rather too self-conscious of their superiority to other men, for the give and take of ordinaiy life. But it is with our elementary teachers tbat we wish more especially to deal at present ." An increase of emoluments and enlarged sphere of activity ba.ve caused them to form an exaggerated view of their importance* and to insist upon what they consider their rights. There is a tendency amongst them to " form a trades-unionism of the worst class and to forget the due relation between themselves and the education of the country." Their claims are ludicrously inconsistent. They would be allowed to act as clerks to School Boards, yet object to statistical work being laid upon them ; they desire to be recognised as servants of the State and directly responsible to the Education Department,

but complain that the Department interferes with their duties and regulates their status. « Another speaker would find justice granted to elementary teachers only when the same pair of covers shall enclose the names of the elementary schoolmaster and the head masters of Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and Bugbj.' " Inspectors should be appointed from amongst them, and the Minister of Public Education chosen from their body : they are to be protected from the discipline of the Department, and dismissal by a §ehool.B6ard, tagyfcdpourt ,ot Appeal' and so on. " This ignorance on the part oFiial»ers asto their position and as to their relation to the country is a point SWfit which no reticence need be shown." Their office does not call for special abilities, and they are not the pillars and guides in our system of education. "If a certificated teacher is fit for his work, it is largely owing to the training he has received from the State; and the sooner he recognises that he is the servant of the school managers and not in direct relation with the State, the better it will be for his understanding of his own position." The pedagogue has developed a science, whose expounder, teacher, and practical exponent he is. It is fitly named the " Science of Pedagogy" or " Paidagogy." "In two Universities— Edinburgh and St. Andrews— we have already fullblown Professors of this novel science, and we hear something of the same kind is in contemplation nearer to ourselves. What the capacities of the Professors may be we have no means of knowing. They may be, and doubtless are, gentlemen of the widest attainments and the highest dialectic skill. But, if so, we can only condole with them on being the official representatives of a science whose very name is embodied pedantry, and which might have found a fitting home amongst the inhabitants of Laputa." la parting with the teachers we advise them to let us hear less about their social ctatus." Social Status is an accident to which it hardly becomes a body of men to pay much attention. Their loud expression of dissatisfaction is at least, the surest means of defeating the end they have in view. We cannot scold ourselves into social consideration." And now as to the books. The new style of schoolbook is a phenomenon in modern education not altogether liealtby. Some of these handbooks are admirable. " But the endless supply of handbooks on every conconceivable subject-of primers reaching from Homer and Shakcspears to Political Economy, of school treaties in this or that' epoch' of history— is now carried to an extent that is, to say the least, surprfemg. We have school editions of every popular poem, from ' Tarn 0' Shanter' to ' Childc Harold/ in which each whim of the poet, each flash of genius, cacb happy tiu-n of expression, is analysed, dissected, done to the veriest death-agony of prose. We ] ire in dread of a school edition of the' Waverley Novels.' . . W e recently glanced at one of these handbooks on the reign of Queen Anne, in which the leader was informed ' Swift's humour was never excelled by any other English author/ or words to that effect. In the name of all that is reasonable, to what purpose is all this ? Can any one gravely maintain that the politics of Queen Anne's reign, the intrigues of Sarah Jennings and Abigail Hill, the slyness of Harley, or the cynicisms of Walpole, are fit subjects to set before a boy ? When you have told him that Swift is a great humourist, what next ? Is be, parrot-like, to repeat tuis, or do you propose to illustrate Swift's humour, that he may judge for himself? Do you fancy you can so much as explain to him what humour is, or do you wish that our schoolboys were men of the world enough to know what the humour of Swift meant ? And if they did know, what arc you adding to their knowledge by telling them that Swift was an excellent humorist * We question the principle of selection for most of these school books, but far more do we question their excessive multiplicity.- They distract the mind ; foster the worst symptoms of onr educational restlessness ; aim at displaying the special talent of the teacher rather than developing the boy's faculties ; abound in allusive writing which encourages a parade of .superficial knowledge. " 1 hey are often imposhuea in literature, interfere with permanent work, and are written, as one may see at a glance, with a nervous dread of the critics, and an eager desire, by some orthodox spelling, to propitiate the wrath of the specialist. In no aspect whatever are one-half of these countless handbooks good."

Captain Russell, the other day, in his speech at Napier, said « They were none of them aristocrats. This was not the country for such a class. He had seen the son of a peer cooking for splitters j

and he had seen men. who had come out in smock frocks become rulers in the land. (Hear, hear 1 ) It was a country where the great would rise to the surface, no matter how small was their beginning. (Applanse*) To. talk of an aristocratic class was all bnnkuiri. There' was no position that any man could not aspire to, except that of an elective Governor. CLaughter and applause.)" We do not knowthat all these utterances are by any means unquestionable. We do not at all knpw,that there is no taste in this country for aristocrats, and, dft thecontiary, we hare seen very palpable signs that sucTi aya v taste doesjpeist. We have even fety -called upon to do the little that lay within our power to cast a just ridicnle on sncli a taste, and a certain paltry attempt to act upon it. But have there not.been public instances in these colonies — we need not particularise New Zealand, because a like spirit may be assumed, to pervade all British settlements in these seas — where a taste for aristocrats was displayed with the most ludicrous consequences. It is not so very many years ago since the famous Count Von Attems (we are not quite sure of the orthography) came this way. In Australia, at least, he was salaamed to in a most humiliating manner. One Queensland magnate swore his Excellency reminded him of the Emperor of Austria, his Excellency's cousin, to whom the magnate had had the glory of being introduced on a recent visit to Europe. And then it turned out that it was not the Count at all that was there, but the Count's thievish valet. Peers' sons who are allowed to cook amongst us, we suspect are peers' sons who find in such an office the highest step in the social scale they can possibly be persuaded to abide on. If they would only consent to even a minimum of good behaviour, depend upon it they would find many to perceive and relish the odour of aristocracy surrounding them. We do not believe in the so common an expression of contempt for rank ; nor do we pretend to despise it when genuine and in its proper place. Well nigh a century of the Revolution has not effaced the respect for it in France, and it is as marked in America as in Europe, — witness the flocking of American fashionables to the vice-regal court of the Marquis of Lome. We have no doubt in the world a well-bebaved lord would be as much sought after out here as at home, and even a middling one might find 6ome of his peccadilloes winked at. We should have no objection in the world to a genuine aristocracy, but we mortally abhor shoddy, and it is shoddy we should have for a certainty. But when are these " great" men Captain Russell speaks of coming to the surface ? This concerns us much more nearly, and we shall anxiously look out for their elevation. It will be quite a refreshing sight to see a great man rising up. What a giant he will be when he does rise up amongst the mediocrity, leaning occasionally too to the wrong side, which is all that we have been accustomed to see exalted on our high places. We trust that there is some struggling Titan, at this very moment, endeavouring to rear his head above the mob, and certainly destined to succeed. But even him we will not take any part in electing as our Governor ; there we firmly hold with Captain Russell.

They arc very envious people in the North Island, and it would be well for them to remember that the tenth commandment forbids them to covet their neighbours' goods. Not only are they rubbing their hands with delight, and crowing to the top of their bent, because they vainly think the affair of the Stadt Haarlem is certain to obtain for them a great portion of the trade that should belong to Dunedin, but they are stamping mad because ''Wellington cannot claim a a monopoly of impulsive gentlemen of the long robe." Dunedin, they say, quite shares the honour, and they actually grudge us the fiery specimen of forensic eloquence that continually enlivens our law courts, and once even condescended to enliven our streets. This is very unfair of them. Meantime they do their best to profit by our treasure, and we find their newspapers even so far as remote Taranaki reporting the squirting out of soul that takes place so frequently amongst u<*. Ihis is enough to encourage any man, and we mention it for the purpose of bracing np our '• impulsive gentleman of the long robe "to renewed efforts. The law courts are but flat and dreary places, and it is a chanty to try and infuse a little spirit into them. No wonder the envious North is covetous over the matter.

We should very much like to know what on earth that writer in the Quarterly, from whom we have quoted this week and last, would Bfiy were he to light on a Government free school in which dancing vras included in the curriculum. Pic considers free ichools to be a form of alms-giring, and free schools for well-to-do people " indiscriminate alms-giving.'' What kind of alms-giving, then, would he consider dancing lessons given in a free school ? It is not difficult to guess what any man of common sense, and not driven half daft by riding a hobby, would have to say on the matter. We fancy he would not waste much time in picking out mild words to convey his ideas thereupon, Yet dancing has been taught in a free school in Queensland ; and, as sure as fate, we shall have it here too all in good time, The Government schools will never be able to absorb all the children in the country unless they are content to pander to all sorts of fantastic tastes. They have been obliged to do so in America, wlierc the children of the very poor have been elbowed out of the

public schools by fine masters and misses, all furbelows and grace* ; and solid, useful instruction there, we have frequently seen it complained, has given place to vain smatterings of many kinds, "We ' were always given k> understand,"- says the Australian, "that our elementary system of" training was devised in the interests of the poorer class, but matters have taken a new turn for which we were - hardly prepared." In this case, however,, it were as well to be prepared for anything. What was to be expected?,-- Did' any experienced man really 1 suppose that the well-to-do peoplc-who^rowcfed their children into the free schools were going to bs content to haye tbentgiven a mere plain elementary education ? If -so, his sagacity -was-f or the nonce sadly at fault ; of course they never dreamt of such a .thing. Free education no doubt was very nice, but free education well stocked with accomplishments ; without these it is nothing worth. The alternative would ba private schools, and there would bs the abomination of desolation once more to deal with. A secularist Government would prefer anything to that, and therefore the dancing - master pirouettes upon the scene. This, however, is psrhaps the extreme, the nimble deponent has probably tripped in too soon ; he must for a season retire again, but only to bide his time, and reappear as a permanency. "An elementary system of training devised in the interests of the poorer classes" — such is the pretence, the leality is whims and follies, cramming and vagaries, musicians, and dancer*, and even, O popoi ! manufactured poets, poets produced hy the contemplation of rosy apples. This i» " indiscriminate almsgiving " with a vengeance — even the alms-giving of lunatics.

It is interesting to find that the Archbishop of Sydney has in his second lecture completely exploded a theory recently advanced by Mr. Romanes in favour of evolution. His grace's reference to the condition of the lowest race of savages known, and his illustration of his remarks by pointing to the case of the boy Bobby, brought down to him from the north of Queensland, the stronghold of the lowest blacks, quite dispose of the matter. The passage from Mr. Romanes to which we allude occurs in an article of his, headed " Animal Intelligence," which appeared in a recent number of the Nineteenth Century ; it runs as follows : — " Now there is no doubt that the interval which separates the most degraded savage from the most intelligent animal is, psychologically considered, enormous ; but, enormous as it is, I cannot see any evidence to show that the gulf may not have been bridged over during the countless ages of the past. Abstract ideas among savages are mostly confined, to such as may be formed by the logic of the feelings ; so that, for instance, according to the observations and the iudgment of Mr. Francis Galton, the ideas of nnmber which arc presented by the lowest savages are certainly in oo way superior to those which are presented by the higher animals. Such ideas as savages possess seem to be, mainly those which, as in animals, are due to special associations. On this account there is in them, as in animals, a remarkable tendency to act in accordance with preformed habits, rather than to strike out improved modes of action. On this account, also, there is, as in animals a strong tendency to imitation as distinguished from origination. Again, as in animals, so •in savages, the reflective power is of an extremely undeveloped character, and quite incapable of sustained application. And, lastly, the emotions of savage*, as of animals, are vivid, although as contrasted with the emotions of civilized man, they are in a marked degree more fitful, impetuous, shallow, and transitory. 60 tha^ altogether, I think the lowest savages supply us with a most valuable transition stage between mind as we know it in ourselves ; and mind as we see it manifested by the higher animals." The force of the argument vanishes, however, if it can be shown that all this results from the accidents of the condition in. which the savage finds himself, and that the defects are rather of training than of capacity. This is proved to be the fact when it is found that the children of such savages, as in the case of the boy Cobby, are capable of being instructed and so educated as to present nothing of the moral or mental aspect presented by their parents. Indeed our personal experience of Australian bush life goes far towards leading us to form similar conclusions with those drawn by his Grace. It is impossible to witness the effect, for good or evil, of contact with civilization, on even the black inhabiting his native forest, and subsisting for the most part as his fathers subsisted, without being ready to <lcny that there is any approach to the nature of the brutes to be found in him.

A CASE for the Bible Society occurred the other day iu-the town of Buninyong. A lady bought a Bible for £3 103., and her husband refusing to pay for it the seller took legal steps to recover his money. The husband gained the case : but that has nothing to say to the matter. What we want to know is, Where was the Bible Society ? A lady who would have paid £3 10a for a Bible if her husband would have allowed her, and who, in any event, took some trouble, and no doubt endured a sound rowing about obtaining a Bible,- would evidently have been willing to take a whole armful of Bibles gratis. Where could the Society have been 1 This shows sad remissness on their part. But the fact is, we fancy, the Bible Society is not much

troubled about the- Biblical needs of folk who are willing to take and study their book. Their forte lies in thrusting it, sometimes most grotesquely rendered, upon people who don't want it, and cannot ] cad it, and who never open it twice. They would consider it moßbtrous were they asked to help this lady in Buninyong out of her dilemma, but would gladly expend ten times the amount necessary for that on some chimerical attempt to impose their volume on some one not desiring it. It sounds much better, indeed, to bear that several thousaud Bibles had been given to Austro-Hungarian soidiers, for instance, than that one expensive copy has been bestowed on a Protcsiant Englishwoman : but all the time it might be more satisfactory to Bible-reading folk to learn that one Bible was receiving respectful usage than that several thousand were being used up principally in pipe lights. * - , ' — ___ ' i * ■* - New fields now lie open before that interesting specimen of humanity, the fortune-hunter. In old times the object of Iris pursuit " «ys some damsel, or widow, who had succeeded to an inheritance, iiiorc or less rich, according to his pretensions or the circumstances inwhich he found himself, but now-a-dayshc need no longer be restricted by any such limits. Ladies are now far advanced towards sharing professional avocations with the sterner sex, and the doler far niente may be attained to quite as conveniently by becoming the husband of a talented lady -lawyer or physician, as by carrying off an heiress. Our thoughts have. been turned towards this by reading of such a dame in San Francisco, and who gives the following account of herself : " There is nothing to be said about me. I originated from the cradel, the wash-tub, the sewing machine, and the cooking stove. I have educated myself and little ones by practising law, and I mean to succeed, and that's all there is to be said of me." We should be by no means surprised to find that there was also hanging on to the brave-hearted body some lazy lout of a fellow, whose true nature, with all her legal acumen, she had been unable to discern, and for whom, as well as for the " little ones," she was by her talents making provision. The class of ladies in question, however, is not one with which we have much sympathy, although, perhaps, after all there is not so very much difference between those who openly and boldly assume the manly role themselves, and those who pull the strings behind the scenes, and make their mankind dance to any tune it please? them to whistle. [We mean, of course, in matters- professional ; far be it from us to interfere with any legitimate application of the " three-legged stool."] Of these Mrs. Proudic is the type, but their name is legion, and the difficulty is not to stumble across them everywhere. We have for instance beard of one suck matron, the wife of an English parson, who every Sunday, on the termination of the morning service, gathered the adult males of the congregation together at the bottom of the church iv which her husband had just concluded his sermon, and made up for the shortcomings of that worthy man by herself delivering a lecture, which was reported to be most edifying. We do not speak of the la^y who preached to the navvies, or others no less famous, for these may well aank with the physicians and lawyers, and take tlicir place amongst those generally practising in public. They took their stand boldly and openly, and bid behind no man's coat-tails. A wife's tongue may positively be her husband's fortune now-a-days ! How strangely " runs the world away." The last number of the weekly edition of the Times to hand by the Suez Jlail has devoted a whole page, of four lengthy columns, to details of the execution and career of a man named Charles Peace, hanged at Leeds on February 24th, for a murder committed at Banner-cross, near Sheffield. The whole story is painful and disgustiug in the extreme. We know not which revolts us most, the noisy, nervous, self-deceiving expression of penitence and piety made by the condemned wretch as he stood upon the scaffold, or the details of his j miserable, criminal career, and the whining attempt to excuse himself from the commission of wilful murder. " You gentlemen reporters,'' he said in a loud tone, " I wish you to notice the few words I am going to say to you. .1 know that my life has been base and bad. I wish you to ask the world aftei jou have seen my death what man could die as I die if he did not die in the fear of the Lord. Tell all my friends that I feel sure they have sincerely forgiven me, and that I am going into the Kingdom of Heaven, or eke to that place prepared for rus to rest in until the great Judgment Day. I have no enemies that I feel to have on this eartb. I wi&h all my enemies, or those -would-be enemies — I wish them well, and I -wish them to come to the Kingdom of Heaven at last. And now to one and all I say good-bye, good-bye, Heaven bless you, and may you all come to the Kingdom of Heaven at last. Amen.' 1 What can be more drearily illustrative than this of the effects of a false creed stepping in at the end with its ineffective means of moving to repentance, and its illusive promises of immediate bliss to the soul, that should be soot into the presence ot its God bo deeply stained. There is a horrible and wierd conceit in this man's message to the " world," and his holding up the method of his death as a pattern of those who die "in the fear of the Lord," and it is again repeated in the good wishes he presumes to address to his " would-be-enemies ; " as if in his place it "would not

have better become, him to acknowledge that every man might justly be bis enemy, if he felt himself -worthy to do even so much. This plunge into eternity of a coward, utterly crushed by the approach of his doom, and whining pious phrases with a false sanctimoniousness, goes far to condemn the religion in whose interests it is perhaps reported. But it seems an innocent man had been for sometime suffering an unjust penalty in this poor creature's room.' J In 1876, a policeman was shot at Whalley Range, and a young Irish gardener, named Habron, was convicted.'of the murder, and would have been . hanged had not a petition in his favour been got up, in compliance*with which his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Peace has now, however, cleared him, by confessing himself to be the murderer. Here is what he said :•—•" I attended the Manchester Assizes for, two days, jftnd heard the youngest of the biothers, as I was told' they Wrej ; sentenced to^deatb. The sentence was afterwards reduced to penal servitude for life. Now, Sir, some people will say that I was a hardened wretch for allowing an innocent man to suffer for my crime. But what man would have done otherwise in my position ? Could I have done otherwise, knowing as ,1 did that I should certainly He hanged for the crime ? But now that I 'am going to forfeit my own life, and feel that I have nothing to gain by further secrecy, I think it right, in the sight of God and man, to clear the young man, who is innocent of the crime. That man was sentenced to death the day before I shot Mr. Dyson. I did not intend— l really did not intend— to kill the policemau, but only to disable him to get away myself, and I call God to witness that his life was taken by mo unintentionally."

" Once scorned and hated by the Prussian nation as the tool of a despot, he now rests from all his labours with the tears of an Empire trickling on his bier." So writes the Times' 1 correspondent of tho late Field- Marshal Count Von Koon. Far be it from us to scoff o'er the ashes of the mighty dead, but when we read this we could not for the life of us avoid thinking of Mr. Mantalini's plaint concerning a " Derad damp, moist, unpleasant body."

The Maoris want a bishop ; that is they want a Maori bishop, so the Walta Maori informs us. " First," says Hemi Matenga, of Ngatitoa, "we are instructed in Christianity, and, having acquired knowledge therein, some of us were made ministers, and have now officiated as ministers for more than twenty years. We were next instructed in the law, and before we were fully able to master its intricacies some of us were dragged forward to be made members of Parliament, Ministers of the Government, and Magistrates. Now, I ask, why are some of us raised to prominent positions in the Government and not in the Church ! In other words, why do the Church appointments with respect to us Maoris abruptly cease when we attain to the position of ordinary minister ! Why is there no Maori Bishop, since the natives of these islands have for a considerable time post embraced Christianity ? Let it not be said because a man is a Maori he is unfit to be a Bishop." By all means let the Maoris have their bishop if they want him, and it docs seem hard that a people capable of producing a prophet, who is at least, according to a most respectable newspaper, the equal of Dr. Cumtning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Pope, should be deprived, of such a mere everyday appendage as a bißhop. Surely if they were fit to be magistrates, Ministers of State, and members of Parliament, without having had a full knowledge of the law, and ministers of religion without, we suppose, a full knowledge of the Gospel, they may well claim their bishop, who logically need not be one bit better instructed. Decidedly let them have his Eight Reverence without delay. Perhaps Te Whiti might be persuaded to descend from his elevation a little, and compromise matters by accepting the office. He would fill it to perfection.

A corbespondent, who signs himself "Tom Brown," has ■written to the New Zcalandcr of the 26th ult. a long letter in which he discusses the Catholic policy of the Block Vote. There is a good deal which we might say respecting this letter did time admit of it, but, for the moment at least, we are able only to make a few remarks touching one of its paragraphs. The writer, then, says, referring to the " system of exacting pledges adopted by the Boman Catholics," " I will not hesitate to declare that this action to me appears criminal, inasmuch as it it is diametrically opposed to the first principle of representative Government, At all elections ' the people part with and give up their power for a limited period to deputies chosen by themselves, those deputies exercising fully and freely that power instead of the people themselves.' And for what purpose do the people give up this power, why do they elect representatives at all ? Is it not that they may make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the community ? " Precisely so ; but if the people, or any section of the people, plainly see that a certain law, if made or maintained, must directly militate against the peace, order, and good government of the community, would not they be acting a " criminal" part rather in sanctioning or supporting it, than in doing all in their power to oppose it ? The people have decidedly no right to commis*

sion any man to work evil in tbeir name, and to the guilt of such a commission they would add further an extreme folly if, hy granting it, they should consent to being plundered, and to having, the dearest rights of man, his parental rights, violated to tbeir prejudice. We shall not now follow this correspondent's argument any further. Suffice it to say, if his judgment be correct, it may appear a gross infringment of the rights of representatives when their constituents, as it occasionally happens, call upon them to resign, and that even the accounts oE their stewardship, which we find them so often render, may seem somewhat superfluous. In conclusion, he quotes from Edmund Burke: "They (Catholics) appear to forget that our House is to be regarded ' not as a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests ; but as a dcliberatiec assembly of one nation with one interest, that of the whole, where not party purposes, not party prejudices, ought to guide, but the general goo I resulting from the general reason of the whole. 1 " With this we thoroughly agree ; but we deny that we are actuated by party purposes, or prejudices, or that we seek to introduce them into Parliament. We are guided in our action respecting the education question by the great principles upon which are based all the high motives of our lives, and we dare not compromise them. The recognition of their God should be considered a party consideration by no body of men on earth. Again we are acting to the best of our power in support of the " one interest " of the nation ; for if we believe that we should be the principal sufferers of all who should accept the secular system, we hold it to he so because wo, as Catholics, should in our religion have the most to lose, but at the same time we firmly believo the whole nation would most severely suffer. Dcci Udly our criminality would be in refr&iuing from opposition by every 1 ful means to the secular system.