New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1879. EDUCATION AND TAXATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 335, 19 September 1879, Page 13

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1879. EDUCATION AND TAXATION.

fROM statements perpetually repeated in the newspapers, either by leader writeis or correspondents, it is evident that all that has been written on the subject of education by Catholics has been in vain, so far as secularists are concerned. Old calumnies against Catholics, old misstatements refuted a thousand times, are still repeated as if they were gospel truths. This renders it necessary for us no less in charity towards our deluded neighbours than in our own defence, to reiterate in these columns replies that have been often given before. The secular instruction given in the public schools is called education, though the moral and religious faculties of children are neglected, and it is taken for granted that if children are taught to read and write a little, and calculate a trifle, then education is sufficiently attended to. Much more it is said cannot be done for the masses by the public. This satisfies the consciences of many, and the capability of further improvement thus bestowed reconciles them to the exclusion of moral and religious training from the school room. But what is the nature of this capability for further improvement acquired by learning to read in public schools. Experience proves that in very many instances this capability is in reality a " myth." This is the teaching of our own experience. _ But it is not our intention to ask the public to accept this statement on our own unsupported word. About

ten years ago Dr. Stuahan, of Dollar, Scotland, published a series of articles in the Scotsman, from the third of which we take the following extract :—: — " We boast that in Scotland every boy and girl is educated, and in country districts this is to a certain extent true. But a careful inquiry will show that in a vast p>>o})ort'wn of cases, this so-called education is entirely useless, and has been merely a waste of time and money. Among the class of agricultural labourers, male and female, although all have been to school in their youth, yet nine out of ten, have never read a book or a newspaper, and by the time they are twenty or twentyfive years of age, tlteir ability to read is lost, and their education has been time and money thrown away." It would be well for those who never cease to quote statistics as to the state of education in Italy, for example, to read these articles from the powerful pen of Dr. Strahan. By so doing, they would learn that statistics as to the ability to read and write do not always afford a reliable test as to the real state of education in a nation. This vast proportion of Scots who at twenty or twenty-five years of age have lost their ability to read would, no doubt, appear in statistical tables under the heading " Able to read;" and yet how much better off are they than those who never learned to read, and how much better educated ? Certainly, if they came from secular schools where nothing was taught about God and their Christian duties, they are not as well educated as those who have the honesty to say they cannot read, but who have been carefully taught their catechism.

And, as we have mentioned Italy, we cannot do better than here set down two extracts from a lecture delivered by Bishop Moran in Dunedin some years ago :—: — " Next we are invited," the Bishop says, "to look at the state of education in Italy, and we are told there are seventeen millions of people there who can neither read nor write. In answer, I say, were this statement true— and lam certain it is not— l should not be surprised, nor will any one be surprised who bears in mind that the Italian—Piedmontese—Government have had possession of the Peninsula for many years, and have laboured with might and main during these years to destroy Catholic schools, which they have closed throughout all the provinces under their sway. They have imprisoned bishops and priests, turned religieuses out of their houses, converted convents into barracks, profaned churches, and diverted funds devoted to purposes of education into other channels. When one takes into account then, the infants, youths of both sexes under 15 years of age, and all who could and ought to have been at school during the Piedmontese sway, we cannot but expect to find a vast number of ignorant people amongst the rising generation. But the Church is not responsible for this. Throughout Italj, during this time, the Church has been grievously persecuted, her action impeded in every way, her funds confiscated, her schools destroyed, and her authority set at defiance by Government officials. If then ignorance prevail, and it does not prevail to nearly the extent stated, this is due to that Government which is the idol of all bigoted haters of the grand old Church, and not to that Church which was venerable by age and innumerable blessings conferred on society, the poor, literature, and the arts, centuries befoie even the name of her modern detractors was heard, before it was even invented."

Having now shown the nature of statistics as to ability to read and write, and the value to be set upon them ; having vindicated the Church from one of the charges recently brought against her in Chris tchurcb, we shall proceed to before our readers the opinions of some great statesmen as education ; and then, after showing the admirable results o denominational education in the most Protestant country oi Europe, give in the words of a Protestant writer what the Church has recently done for education where her action was unimpeded.

To the words of statesmen we prefix the teaching of philosophers, as we find it in another lecture of Bishop Moran, also delivered in Dunedin some years ago. We give the whole passage unabridged. " The great work of education," says Milton, " is to repair the rain of our first paients by learning to know God aright ; to love him, to dehire to imitate him as best we can, possessing our souls in true virtue, which being united to true science makes, up the highest peifection." Locke declares that a literary without a virtuous education is rather an evil than a benefit. Washington says, '■ of all dispositions and habits which lead to public prosperity, religion and morality are mdispeusable supports, a volume could not trace all thenconnection with private and public society. Let it be simply asked— wheie is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of icligious obligation deserts the oaths which are the instruments in the com ts of justice. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can, he maintained without religion:' Portalis, Minister of Public Instruction under Nai-oleox I. addressed the Legislative Assembly thus : "There it, no instruction without education ; no proper education without morality and dogma. We must take religion as the basis of education ; and if we compare what the instruction of the present day ;.-, with what it ought to be, we cannot help deploring the lot which awaits and threatens the present

and future generations." Guizot, who was Minister of Public Instruction under Louis Philippe, writes in his Memoirs (c. 3, p. 69, Paiis 18G0). "In order to make popular education truly good and socially useful it must be fundamentally religious. Ido not simply mean by this that religious instruction should hold its place in popular education, and that the practices of religion should enter into it, for a nation is not religiously instructed by such p^ty mechanical devices. It is necessary that national education should bo given and received in the midst of a religious atmosphere, and that religious impressions should penetrate into all its parts. Religion is not a study, or an exercise to be restricted to a certain place and a certain hour ; it is a faith and a law which ought to be felt everywhere, and which after this manner alone can exercise all its beneficial influence upon our minds and our lives." With these eloquent words, and most true, and most Christian principles of the great Protestant statesman Guizot, we shall conclude to day, recommending them to the serious consideration of members of Parliament, who in becoming members of our Legislature assume such tenible responsibilities towauls the present and future of this colony. We shall resume the subject next week.