INTERVIEW WITH MR M. NOLAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 25, 20 October 1893, Page 25

INTERVIEW WITH MR M. NOLAN.

(From Truth.)

A MPBESINTATIY* of Truth waited upan Mr M. Nolan, who is recognised in Cbristchurch as one of the best lay authorities upon education as it affects private schools, and a gentleman whose views •re invariably backed up by figures of a more or less telling character.

At the outset Mr Nolan said that it must be borne in mind that we have two defferent systems of education iv this colony, each of which is distinct and separate from the other ; distinct in the social status of its pupils, distinct in its methods of administration and in the extent and scope of its operations. First we have the primary schools for the children of the poor and of the working classes generally, and again the secondary and higher schools and colleges kept exclusively for the children of the wealthy and upper classes.

Reporter : Bay we take the primary system to begin with ? Mr Nolan : Tbe primary system in my opinioa should be viewed from a threefold aspect, if we are to get anything like a comprehensive grasp of its management and administration, and its influence on the future well-being of the colony. However, let us take up the first aspect of the subject. The working classes contribute about fivesixths of the entire ravenue of the colony, therefore for every pound contributed towards the support of tbe primary schools by the monied classes the workingmen contribute £5. They are therefore the largest contributors towards the support of the syßtem. But while this is indisputable it is no less certain that their children, for very sufficient reasons, receive only the merest smattering of an education under the provisions of the schema. The system of primary education in this colony gives the working classes no adequate return for the money it costs them.

Reporter : You forget that the system is free, secular and compulaory. I think you seem to imply that the system is an expensive one?

Mr Nolan : The syatem is neither free, secular, nor compulsory, but it is most expensive and unjust to the working cUsses. According to the last Government report the number of children in the different standards last year were :— Standard 111., 17,292 ; standard IV., 16,075; standard V, 11,764; standard VI., 7,176 ; standard VII., 3,337. This table proves that the children of the working classes leave school in large numbers after they pass the third standard, and that they fall away In thousands after they pass the fourth. It is manifestly only the children of well-to-do parents who remain to take advantage of the higher standards.

Prom table O of the same report, we learn that tbe children in the schools at the end of the year were classified as follows with regard to their ages :— Nine years and under ten, 14,549 ; ten years and under eleven, 14,056 ; eleven years and under twelve, 13,470 ; twelve and under thirteen, 12,652; thirteen and nnder fourteen, 9319; fourteen and under fifteen, 5308; over fifteen, 2688. Both tables point to the fact that the children of the working classes leave school at so early an age that they can never pick up more than the merest rudiments of education. Another table (E), which gives the ages at which different standards are passed, informs ua that the fourth standard is passed at the average age of twelve years and four months. Now, all these tables point to the fact that the poor man's child never gets beyond the fourth standard."

Reporter : What is the cost to the parents ?

Nr Nolan: Primary education alone cost this colony last year £479,114. This amount, divided among the present population, imposes a tax of 14s on every man, woman and child in the colony. Now, multiply this by sixteen, the number of years the Act is in force, and you get £11 4s as being the amount which the primary scheme has cost every individual who has beea in the Colony since the inception of the system. A man of say ten in family would have to contribute £112 towards the support of these schools during this time, and yet we are xold the system is free. It is a monstrous infatuation 1 It is perhaps the most expensive system in the whole world ; it iv certainly the most unwieldy and extravagantly admioifitered. Since 1887 it has cost the Colony the enormous amount of £6,581,885, an average of £411,367 a year for the education of a population which is leas than a good•ized provincial town in England. Last year the Bum

expended on primary education amounted to £4 16s B£d for eaoh child in average attendance through the year, bat the cost of secondary education amounted to over £40 for each child in average attendance at the secondary and higher schools. If the amount of salary paid to teachers in the lower schools be divided by the number of their pupils the quotient would be £3 3s 8d as the cost; of tuition, but by the same process we get a quotient £13 lls 6d as the cost of tuition in the secondary schools. The cost of tuition in Christ College Grammar school of this town averaged £21 for each child last year. The average of the teachers' salaries in the primary schools last year was £94 8s lOd, while the average of those in the secondary schools was £235.

Reporter : But what has all this to do with tbe question at issue ?

Mr Nolan : Just this. It proves conclusively that the poorer classes, who are the mainstay of the system, receive but the most trifling advantages from it, while the wealthier classes, who contribute the least towards its support, enjoy all its rich endowments, its privileges, and emoluments. Tbe education of the poor man's child is valued at £4 16s B£d, and is dear at that. The education of the rioh man's child coata over £40, five-sixths of which is paid by the father cf the poor child who never gets beyond the fifth standard, perhaps not even the fourth. The rich man's child is taught by a master who values his services at £235 a year, the poor man's child by one who values his at £99 8a lOd.

Reporter : How about educational endowments ?

Mr Nolan : It will, no doubt, be news to a large number of the readers of Truth that there has been an area of 1,175,657 acres of lanl set aside for educational purposes in this Colony, 638,309 acres of which are dedicated to the primary and 537,348 acres to the secondary and higher schools. If wo divide the number of acres among the children of the primary schools, as they stood on. the rolls last year, each child will have six and a quarter acres of land allotted to him for the purposes of his education, but if we similarly divide the number of acres among the children in ths secondary schools each child will have 252 acres. Mr Seddon once said in the House of Representatives that the working classes of the Colony contributed £1,500,000 a year to the revenue, while the moneyed classes contributed bat £300,000, that is barely one-fifth. If th« working classes are satisfied with these figures thuy mast surely b° indifferent to their own welfare. I think it ii clear that we have no such thing as a free system of education in this Colony.

Reporter : How can you prove that it is not secular ?

Mr Nolan : Well, if you mean by the term secular a freedom from denominational or sectarian bias, then I deny that assumption, because we c*n no longer übut our eyes to the fact that the Freethought or infidel form of unbelief has assumed large proportions in this Colony and is recognised as a denomination. Now, if this be admitted, our national system of education as at present administered is sectarian and denominational in tbe very worst sense of those terms, eince it ignores Christianity and favours the growth and expansion of Freethought and infidelity. The proof of what I say lies in the fact that the infide's and Freethought people are its strongest supporters.

Reporter : How, again, are you going to prove that the system fa or is not compulsory ?

Mr Nolan ; Simply by leferring you to the Parliamentary reports in tbe papers during the last week. After sixteen years' trial of the system the Minister of Education is obliged to bring a Bill into the House called the Education Act Amendment Bill to compel children to go to school and to appoint policemen as truant officers.

Reporter : But looking at the system from the broad platform of Christianity —

Mr Nolan : Yes, I was coming to that. The present attitude of the majority of the Protestant clergy towards our education ly stem seems inexplicable. But in whatever light we look at it, their action is indefensible. If ihey believe themselves to be the ministers of Christ, commissioned to teach His doctrines to the world — and, remembtr, His doctrines are denominational— how c*n they consistently or conscientously support a system of education which is fast undermining those doctrines and getting rid of them, and which absolutely prohibits in tbe school the teachings of that system of religious belief which they were ordained to propagate ? Then again, we have here the melancholy spectacle of Christian ministers encouraging infidelity and freethought. A generation brought up without any positive knowledge of God, or tbe fundamental princi-

pies of His religion, will be a curse for which we are not preparedWith such a generation the occupation of the parson is gone. We hear load and frequnt complaints made in public and 'private of the paucity of the attendance at the Sunday services in the various churches, and yet those reverend gentlemen who complain about those things cannot see that their own conduct is largely accountable for this state of things. Tbe present system of education is certainly responsible for the religious indifference which is spreading around us with such alarming rapidity and with melancholy results. Another decade of such teaching as we hays bad during the last sixteen years and good-bye to Protestantism in this colony. This would, however, Jbe a thiog to be deplored' for its place will be occupied by rank infidelity.

Reporter— An assertion has been made to the effect that the majority of the people of the Colony have grown tired of denominationalism.

Mr Nolan— l am not aware of it. All this noise about denomi. nationalism is unadulterated cant. Those very people who use this cry until they have given it a repellant significance go to the greatest trouble and expense to disseminate, to teach, and to propagate the thing that, forsooth, must not be enconraged in the State schools. They build churches and chapels and meeting houses for it, and support parsons and preachers to teach it every Sunday, and they send out missionaries^ the South Sea Islands and elsewhere to force it on tbe unoffending savages, who have no desire in tbe world for it. And yet we are told that we mnst have none of it in the schools. Does not this stem somewhat absurd ?

Reporter— How many recognised denominations do you consider there are in New Zealand.

Mr NoUn— Will, outßide of the Freethought people, there are only two denominations in this Colony. The Catholic and the Protestant, all the others are but hangers-on to the skirts of Protestantism, are in fact, for all practical purposes, Protestants. Their religious beliefs, their fundamental principles, their theology and ethics art all Protestant ; their leanings, sympathies, and instincts are Protestant.

Reporter— How would you solve the difficulty for the various denomination! 1

Mr Nolan— The Catholics have solved the difficulty for themselves, and its solution would present no obstacle to the others if there were honesty of purpose at the bottom of their objections. Let me further remark, that in honesty of purpose, in moral rectitude, in true refinement, in sturdy manliness, in purity of thought and action, in its appreciation of virtue, society at the present day is many degrees beneath the society of those times when denominationalism was the only system known to ths world.

Reporter — What about the Catholic claims 1

Mr Nolan— At the end of 1892 there were 121,187 children on tbe rolls of the State schools, exclusive of Maoris and half-castes. If we deduct 1 per cent from this number for the Catholic children in attendance, we get a remainder of 119,976 non-Catholic children, Now if we take tbe one-ninth of this remainder as tbe numb«r of Catholic children in the Colony we will get a pretty near approach to the truth. This would give us 13,330 Catholic children for the whole Colony, exclusive of those attending the State schools. Irrespective of any outlay for school-buildings, these children would, if sent to tbe State schools, cost the country— at the rate paid for the others last year— a little over £64,500, and if school buildings had to be provided for them they would have cost a further Bum of £130,000. thus bringing up the total cost to the country for the education of those children to £194,500.

Reporter— The Catholics refuse to send their children to the State schools I

Mr Nolan— Where are the schools for the Catholic children to go tof Almoit every School Board in the Colony is crying out for more school accommodation and for more money wita which to build schools, and many of them have large debit balances to their building account!. In the very last Government report on education, we are told that sevtral of the Boards complain that the grants made to tbtm are inadequate to meet their requirements, and we learn through the Parliamentary reports in the papers that no less than £151,112 are asked (or by Boards for present building purposes. There were at the end of 1892 ninety. four schools in operation not belonging to Education Boards, 400 schools without residences, fifty-nine schools with ltss than 10ft square of space tor each child, and eighteen schools with less than Bft square of space for each child, making seventy-seven overcrowded BChools belonging to the Department ; and with these dismal facts staring us in the face, we are told to send our children to the State Bchools whenever we venture to suggest that some of the money which we pay towards the support of the system ought to be returned to us if we comply with the conditions required by the Act-

Catholics hold that the salvation of their children s aoula is paramount to all other consideration h, and that the means of securing that salvation phoald go hand-in.hand with all secular instruction. If they were to Bend their children to the State schools to-morrow those children would probably cost the Government, on an average, no

Jets than £5 10s a head, whereas half that amount would f ally satisfy the Catholic claims.

Reporter — What about the claims of other denominations?

Mr Nolan — The other denominations have got no schools for which to ask grants in aid, nor are they likely to have them, and they are satisfied with the system as it is. What have 'hey to complain about ?

Reporter— But would it not break up the system if tbe Oatbolios got their demands satisfied ?

Mr Nolan— lt would be far more likely to break up the system if the Catholics were to flood the schools with about 14,000 children. Why, the increase of 2012 children in the primary schools of the Colony last year necessitated the building of 47 new schools, and the employment of 121 additional teachers; it is easy to see, therefore what trouble 13,330 children would give to the Minsisterof Education

Reporter — How would an undenominational system of Cnristi»n teaching suit the Catholic views ?

Mr Nolan— Not at all. You would by this means emasculate your Christianity. There is in fact no such thing aa undenominational Christianity. Each doctrinal fact recorded in the o«w Testa* ment is a dogmatic truth for which every true Christian Bhonld be willing to lay down his life. Get rid of dogma, and where is your Christianity ?