GREATER SHAM THAN EVER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 26, 26 October 1883, Page 15

GREATER SHAM THAN EVER.

§OR a long time we have been told that New Zealand possesses a system of secular education. Acting on the belief that law-makers intended what they enacted, and taking them at their word, we for a considerable time continued to designate it as a godless system — that is, a system which ignored God and religion. Latterly, however, we perceived that there were reasons for modifying our position on the question, and coming to the conclusion that whatever the system may be on paper, it is in reality a system which in its administration under the sanction of the Minister of Education is capable of being made subservient to the teaching of religion and of hurling insults on the tenets and practices of the Catholic Church. In the High School, Dunedin, business is daily commenced by prayer in the Protestant form, said by a Protestant. Iv Milton, school is opened daily by prayer and the reading of the Bible ; and what is done in these two places is done in many others. Yet, according to law, in all schools supported by public funds only secular subjects should be introduced during school hours. These are some of the reasons why we have lately felt ourselves compelled to call this system a sham ; and a sham and hypocrisy, striking and shameless it is. Why do not our legislators, like brave men, even though bigots, say at once that their intention is to humbug Catholics, trifle with them, and insult them by pretending to defer to their views whilst in reality tbeir primary object is to teach. Protestantism at their expense and injure the faith of as many Catholic children as possible ? If they did this, even though we opposed them, we could respect their candour. But as matters are One of our contemporaries lately found fault with an expression in an address presented to Bishop Moran by the children of Gore, and seemed astonished that such an expression should have been used. In reference to this the following letter has been sent to us by a gentleman of the district. He says : " I wish to state that the words ' bitterly hostile to our religion,' in the children's address, had reference to facts which occurred in a public schoo 1 . of this district. A teacher, on a certain occasion, speaking on ' sound and the whispering gallery,' gradually introduced the confessional. His aim, if it was his particular one, was accomplished. There was, of course, a round of laughter, a general turning of young Protestant faces towards Catholic ones. I mention the above as it may be of use to you in making comments on the leader of the Ensign."

So it appears that in a soi-disant eecular school such an entirely secular subject as " sound and the whispering gallery " afforded a fitting opportunity to a soi-disant secular teacher to pander to the prejudices and low views of Protestants at the expense of Catholic children who were compelled to stand silently by whilst a low, vulgar-minded teacher sneeied at a Divine Institution and insulted them and their religion. We had not thought that such a proceeding was at all likely, but we now perceive that this so-called secular system is becoming a greater sham than ever. It is now plain that the old tithe system of the old bitter days in Ireland has been, by law, established substantially in this country. As in the olden days, Catholics were compelled to pay for the teaching of Protestantism and the maintenance of Protestant worship,

so now in New Zealand, Catholics are compelled ; to pay for the maintenance of ai anti-Catholic system and for Protestant prayers and teaching, as also for the support of teachers who vilify and insult the religion of their Catholic pupils even in school hours.