WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 20, 4 March 1892, Page 16

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

fE cannot please the newspapers : if we advocate justice to Catholic schools and point out the only way by which this end can be attained, we are tyrants and faddists. If we discuss week after week the education question and its bearings, we are guilty of damnable reiteration. Probably, if we said nothing at all and silently submittted to the reign of godlessness, even then the papers would find fault with us. Our position is certainly not an enviable one, but we cannot help this, nor can vre change our policy. Even at the almost certain risk of

offending the fastidious Evening Star, we must pursue to the end the course we have pursued so long. In fact, we have a mission to the Evening Star and all other godless newspapers, and our destiny clearly is to carry on this mission ; our heart is set on the conversion of oven the Evening Star, and we are not without hope that we may ultimately succeed! One of the best signs of approaching conversion is the passionate cry of this journal in favour of godless education. The darkest hour of the twenty-four is said to be that which immediately precedes the dawn of day ; and we always expect a change of front from him who protests over much. The rabbidness, therefore, of the Evening Star and others is a hopeful sign, and premonisb.es us that the hour of sanity and common sense is not far distant. But we cannot follow the advice given by the Evening Star last Saturday. We cannot cease to write about education, and especially about education in this Colony, and refer our readers to our past writings passim. To do this would amount to a gross and uncharitable dereliction of duty. For although there are premonitary signs of conversion on the part of the Star, the process of conversion is not sufficiently assured as yet to dispense with all further efforts on our part. The Evening Star is a tough subject to deal with, its hide is thick, and its intellect in reference to this subject of education is slow. This is evident from the slow rate at which light has penetrated it in the past, and if so how much slower would further progress become if we ceased our kind efforts. We are told that it takes an auger to get a witticism into the heads of some people, and we iear it would take two augers to get reason on the education question into the brains of the Evening Star. Our duty, therefore, to this journal compels us to continue our labour on this question. Nor, as we have already said, are we without hope that, in this particular, a good time is coming. But in the meantime we have one word of kindly advice to tender to our contemporary. Humility is the first condition towards any moral amendment, and we beg to recommend this consideration to the attention of the Star. The Star ought to eschew calling names and giving absurd advice. These are things that betray a vacant and trifling mind, and place obstacles to the attainment of any lofty ideal. And as we wish the Star well we wish to give it this advice, in all earnestness and good faith : Violent partisanship is neither wise no edifying, nor can the grinding of axes and its object be long concealed trom the public. This public is for ever on the alert, its gaze is keen, penetrating, and it soon takes a man's or a journalist's measure. Had some of our contemporaries had a kind monitor at hand during the last twelve months they should have been saved from much humiliation, the public should not have witnessed the spectacle of violent partisanship on the one hand, and the grinning of the public on the other, flaring leaders, and, at the same time, the utter contempt of the public, teaching thrown away on the mass of the people who passed by, incredulous and scoffing. But this is always, or almost always, the result of unreasoning opposition to what is just and politic, at all events, in the long rnn. In fulfilment, then, of our mission to the Evening Star, we shall continue to pursue the course we have hitherto followed, and week after week to thrash the education question till justice be done. The time, no doubt, will come when we shall find our reward in the powerful advocacy by the Evening Star of our cause and our claims. To bring about this desirable consummation as soon as possible must be our constant effort, and we must not permit any consideration to interfere with us in the pursuit of an end so devoutly to be hoped for. In time, instead of being cursed by the Evening Star, we shall, no doubt, find this newspaper invoking blessings on oar head for having been brave enough to withstand its raillery and waywardness, and to take little heed of its anger on account of the Catholic block vote. And here again we find great comfort—the anger of the newspapers on account of this block vote is, in our minds, the strongest proof of its efficacy. This anger proves that we have hit upon the right weapon, and that if all Catholics in New Zealand follow our advice, success is assured. Of this, we entertain no doubt whatever, and it is clear to us that our enemies share in our convictions. It is only necessary for us to stand together like men, united as brothers, and with a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, to secure victory.