Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 36, 5 January 1894, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

UNCHANGEABLE

Ik the reports of the lohool examinations published .by us during the last week or two, our readers have the means of judging as to the great work of Oatholis education that is being done in this colony. The testimony thus borne to the seal of the Catholic Church for eduoation, and to the generosity with wbioh the Catholic people comply with and support her guidance in this matter is undeniable. It is not, however, only in New Zealand that we find evidence as to what the Church is thus doing. Wherever she is able— even though, as among ourselves, at the cost of a difficult effort and many sacrifices— she is, and she always has been, carrying ob the good work. Take Ireland as an illustration of what, in other parts of the world, she is at present doing. — Examples of what she has done in tht past are also ready to our hand. The Archbishop of Dnblin was able, in speaking on education some weeks ago, to quote the expression of satisfaction uttered by the Census Commissioners at the wonderful progress made in the country. In the twenty years ending with 1891, they stated, the percentage of the young between the ages of 10 and 15 who were unable to read had fallen from over 20 to about 6. We know, moreover, from the results of the Intermediate Examinations how splendid has been the work of higher education done by the teachtrs of the religious orders. Let this suffice for testimony as to the present. It tells ÜB, beyond all reach of doubt, that the Catholic Church at the existing period of the world's history is nobly doing her part. If we were to take each century in succession and each country in detail, we should find that, according to her means and the circumstances of the times — nay, even occasionally aDd in various places, in spite of them— she was always similarly engaged. The other day, for instance, we quoted the testimony of a competent witness, the Scotch Presbyterian Laing, to the condition of things obtaining, in the respect alluded to, when the Pope still held the undisputed mastery of Rome, We saw that, in this city, provision for educating the children of the people was as efficient and much more numerous than it was in Berlin which was considered the model to be followed in the matter by all Protestant cities, and was admitted by them to be facile prineept. That for the nearer past should be a sufficient proof.— Bat if, again, a proof is wanted of the far off past, of the condition of things in those ages when, as Borne would persnade vs — nay, as they often insist upon it— as an argument why now the Church's claim to educate her children should be denied— that thick darkness was the rule, and the people— all except the clergy, who, for sinister purposes and within certain lines were educated— were illiterate, it also is within our reach. "It is a common opinion, bnt, I believe, a common error," writes Professor Thorold Rogers, " that education, in the sense of reading and writing, was hardly ever acquired out of the ranks of the clergy. I cannot account for the universal practice of keeping elaborate and exact accounts if the bailiffs were wholly illiterate. I decline to believe that an official in an estate could carry in his head or verify by tallies the exceedingly numerous details which he must have supplied in order to get his assets and liabilities balanced at the end of the year to a farthing. I have seen from time to time, but rarely, a rough set of entries', evidently scrawled by a very different person from the neat and accomplished scribe who finally indites the roll. Again, we are told that schools were universal. I have alluded to them in London. lam convinced that they were attaobed to every monastery, and that the extraordinary number of foundation schools established jast after the Reformation of 1647 was not a new zeal for a new learning, but the fresh and very inadequate supply of that which had been so suddenly and disastrously extinguished." (" Six Centuries of Work and Wages," full edition, p. 165.)|The bailiffs referred to, we may add, were employed on every farm, and their accounts remain by the thousand,— and this is to be said of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuiies, when no one, we are told, knew how to spell I We find, therefore, that what we see with our own eyes as to the present is testified to, for the nearer past by the traveller, and for the distant put by the historian, and neither of

these writerfl is of an exceptionally friendly disposition towards tat Catholic Church. Professor Thorold Rogers, in fact, is her dator* mined, and, in some instances, shows himself to be her unfair and unscrupulous, adversary. If, then, the Oatholio Church is doing A great work of education in this Colony, as is manifest and nndsni* able, she is bat fulfilling her part here as she is fulfilling it elsewhere, and as she has ever fulfilled it. The reports of the schools should possess for us a double interest as showing as the Choral engaged in her time-honoured and immemorial task.

CONCLUSIVE MGUBEB.

On the occasion to which we have alluded, whea the Archbishop of Dublin delivered an address, from which we have made a qaotatioa, His Graoe also proved the superiority of the Convent primary schools of Dublin to those of the State. The schools he selected for comparison were the chief State school of the citj — the Model schools in Marlborongb street. In both instances the examiners bad been the same inspectors — tboße, nnmely, of the National Bdoeation Board. We quote the Archbishop as follows :— " Htre I should explain that in the case both of our Convent schools and of the Model schools, I am leaving altogether ont of account the work of the lower classes of the schools. For I remember that, a few years ago, when I showed from the official returns, even as they were then made up, the plain superiority of the Convent National schools of Ireland over the Model schools of the country, I was answered by a Model School champion that this superiority lay altogether in the work of tbe lower classes. Well, now, I take them on their own obosea ground. I take no account of the admitted superiority of oar Convent schools in the vitally important wo k of tbe teaching of the infants and of the little children of tbe first and second classes. I take tba results only in tbe higher classes — tbe third, the fourth, the fifth, and, in so far as it can be done in view of the couplicatios caused by the opening of the Industrial Department in some school* and not in othert, I have included the highes*, or sixth, class as well* Here, then is the lesult of the comparison, and a truly instructive comparison it is, as showing tbe emphatic contrast between the work of a school controlled by a State department and that of school! which draw their inspiration from the individual earnestness of com* petent, energetic teachers. The result stated summarily is this. —In every point of the comparison, without exception, tbe Marl* borough street schools have not merely to take the lower place, bat present a woeful spectacle of humiliation. Let me now quote tat) figures. I take, on tbe one hand, the Mailborough street scbools, and on tbe other, tbe aggregate results of the examinations in tbe Convent Bchoola within tbe city of Dublin. Now, as before, we begin with spelling. In tbat subject tbe Model school percentage of passes for the boys is 78, for (be girls it is 71 ; but the aggregate city Cosh vent schools' percentage ie 84. 80, too, in arithmetic for the boys the Model school percentage is 78 ; for the girls it is 76. Weil, tbe city Convent schools' percentage in that subject is 92. Then, in geography the Model schools' percentages, for boys and girls, are 72 and 61 respectively, while io the Convent schools the percentage is 81. Then, finally, in grammar, the Convent schools' percentage again is 81, whilst, as usual, tbe Model schools' percentages stand tar below — for the boys at 72, and for tbe girls at 61." We may heartily agree with the Archbishop tbat " all this is a glorious triumph for the Convent scbools to have won." But, by way of postscript, we may remark tbat possibly those educational authorities among ourselves who have shown a reluctance to having tbe Catholic schools subjected to Government inspection, may not, where the credit of tbe system in which they are interested is oouoerned, have acted without reason — particularly since instruction or training under special conditions seems more the objeot of their anxiety than genuine education. It would never do to have the godless institutions openly put to shame by the Catholic schools, as in Dublin the Model scbools have been by those of the nuns.

ODDS AND ENDS. learned pandit, "

That learned pundit — we suppose it is the same— who wrote a week or two ago to the Otago Daily Txmet to air an addition to bis knowledge, now writes to the Evening Star for a similar purpose. Oar Only a Layman," he calls himself, to show perhaps

that the goosey-goosey gander is not necessarily a minister, has somewhere or other picked up a bit of Latin, and he wants to dazzle us all by hifl learning. He has actually, in some handbook or another, come upon the novel piece of information that there were among the old claesic writers certain satirists, named respectively Horace and Juvenal. That, we will be bound, is all he knows about them. "Tell the names and wbat you know of the lives of the Roman satirists,' 1 says the examiner for a Latin certificate in his paper. Oar pundit, however, by his learned allusions to the ancients, puts ue in mind of a classical joke suited to his standing. " Ass inpraesenti I " exclaims Father Prout, addressing a pedant of his day. Whatever our pundit's relations to the past may be his present associations are plain enough. ! To his opinions we make our pundit welcome, avoiding the extravagance of offering even the traditional penny for his thoughts. Is not the kitchen-midden, whence he has picked his rubbish, open to us gratis ? Our pundit, again, commits himself to a historical statement or two, and again he putß bis foot in it. His first point is that Bt Dominic was a contemporary of the Inquisition. The historical fact is, on the contrary, that St Dominic died eight years before the Inquisition was founded. His second ventnre is that the Inquisition dealt with what he calls " offenders of oar legislative type." The historical fact is, on the other hand , that the offenders dealt with by the Inquisition were, as a competent authority explains, " sufficiently instructed Christians who persevered in error.." Who could affirm that our legislators are " sufficiently instructed?" — though, doubtless, we must admit their perseverance in error, Our pundit himself might almost know batter than that. His anxiety, meantime, to display what he does know — that is, nothing at all — is too palpable to permit of oar believing that be keeps anything in reserve. Here is an awful rumour :— " It is reported that a petition is to be lodged against the return of Sir Robert Stout for Wellington on the alleged ground of a corrupt practice in the shape of a bet made by one of his agents in the late election." Hardy, indeed, must be the man who dares to name Sir Robert Stout and corrnption in the same breath. But if bucq an accusation were true Bir Robert Stout himself would certainly be the first to acknowledge it. Under the circumstances he would at once resign his seat. We can fancy, indeed, that he would rejoice to find so fine an opportunity of proving his devotion, and giving a high example, And a chance would be here of not only producing an overwhelming seusation in the present, bat of impressing posterity in its remotest generations. Leonidas was glad to give his life for Greece, and Grecian posterity profited bravely by his example. Curtius rejoiced to devote himself to the salvation of Rome, and young Romans thenceforth throughout the history of their country derived fortitude from the consideration of his deed. Sir Robert would joyfully devote himself that the new Liberalism might grow up from the ruins of his career, and flourish like the green bay tree around his memory. Could we believe that he would act with less magnanimity than heathen men of the Old World 1 Nay, fancy Sir Robert Stont a subject for the investigations of the Social Reform Association of Dunedin. Is not gambling one of the evils which that Society has been formed to overcome 1 Sir Robert Stout, who has been no respecter of persons, who has even uplifted the voice of condemnation and contempt that it should reach the ears of the heir to the throne of England himself, will never consent to that. Is not betting as bad as baccarat 7 Or who shall say where the mischief will end when once the vile example has been given 1 We absolutely reject every hint that would suggest to us that, under such circumstances, it should, so to speak, be necessary to take Sir Robert by the scruff of the neck and cast him out of the House. He himself would drop the noble tear, of sacrifice, and depart thence with dignity, leaving Parliament distressed but appreciative, the Welling ton Tories perplexed and cornered ; but, aeiwe said, the new Liberalism to rise from the virtue of its founder, as green stuff from a well manured bed, and shelter the whole Colony with its salubrious growth. No, it cannot be. Sir Robert has not resigned, therefore we cay no more of the matter, at least pendente lite. Here is a new glory for the tailoring trade. Nine tailors, they say. .make a man. How many tailoresaea make a woman 1 One it would seem makes an official visitor for a lunatic asylum. Where the appropriate point comes in it is not for us to say — or even to speculate, lest by accident we should seem to cast reflections on the trade. If, now, it was ajdressmaker or a milliner who was so appointed we could manage to understand the fitness. Long association with ladies of fashion might perhaps prove the point, A transition from crinolines to Grecian bends, thence to dress-improvers, and so on to heaven knows what, might qualify any sensible woman looking on for the supervision of any madhouse. But tailoring, why ? —Is this, however, to be a consequence of the women's franchise, that " billets" are to be created for leading ladieß? Or, perchance, contrary to all true ideas of equality, the loaves and fishes enter also into the labour question as it edats in New Zealand. That, we should Bay, is a matter for the labourers themselves, and if they have a true regard for their interests, it is one that they will not neg-

leot. The question of the connection between tailoring and lunacy we leave also to be solved by those whom it particularly concernstailors, tailoresses, or lunatics— possibly the last of the three, as more narrowly interested. The riots reported from Sicily had been for some time foreseen. The pressure of taxation and other blessings attendant on the enjoyment of liberty as conferred by the Government of United Italy had driven the people to the formation of a great secret society calculated to number some 400,000 members of both sexes. The state of things generally throughout the country is an aggravated phase of that of which " Ouida " in her " Village Commune "' some years ago gave ns a graphic picture. Since then matters have become worse. Heavier expenses have been incurred by the Government ; the army and navy have been increased ; the proportional needs of the Triple Alliance have been provided for ; and we may be convinced that the exactions and knavery of officials and bureaucrats have, to say the least of it, become no lighter. Poor Italy groans under the burden of her godless freedom. It is easy to understand, therefore, how an aggravation of the general state of distress felt in a particular district, as has been the case in Sicily, has led to something more than a passive discontent and driven the people to measures intended for self defence. In what such measures result, we see,",in men shot down, and killed or wounded. Such coercion, nevertheless, though it may for a little longer drive discontent beneath the surface, cannot render it one whit mora mild, It must, on the contrary, make the anger hotter and the disposition more desperate, Italy is reaping the crop she sowed, and her harvest bids fair every year to become still heavier. All this, moreover, was predicted, bat the warning was insolently mocked. " God is a myth and political institutions are all conspiracies for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many," — These are the consistent sentiments uttered the other day on her trial in America by one Emma Goldman, a woman convicted of having incited a mob of Polish Jews to rioting. We are told, nevertheless, that teaching which excludes the knowledge of God is that which is necessary for the welfare of the State, and to bring about good Government. Emma Goldman, nevertheless, is but one of a class, and one of a class tbat is widespread and increasing throughout the world; Her motto is alßo that which inspires the dynamitards of France and Spain, and of those other places in which such men are found. True, there are desperate men also who belong to the creeds, and who, while they, not inconsistently with the moat authoritative Christian teaching, retain the faith and are believers, commit wicked actions. The man, nevertheless, who outrages his belief must be the exception, It is necessarily the rule that the man is guided or controlled by what he sincerely believes. What, on the other hand, is there to guide or control the men or women of whom Emma Goldman's motto forms the creed ? Their own will, their natural impulses, homoars, or passions. Nothing stands between society and the violence of which they are capable except what is most changeable and untrustworthy, Madmen alone, it might be thought, would connive at increasing the members of the class in question and exposing society more and more widely to its malice or its wild spirit of devilry. And, in fact, the hatred of religion, and more eipecially the blind, unreasoning bigotry against the Catholic Church, by which the growth of the class referred to is encouraged, may be looked upon as a kind of insanity. The old saying, " A mad world, my masters," takes for us now a new and a very sinister signification. " God is a myth, and political institutions are all conspiracies for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many." There is th? motto that the statesmen and educationalists of the day are lending their influence to extend and propagate. Can such an effort be regarded as that of men who are completely free from the taint of insanity ? Echo may well be left to reply. Our columns we admit are aaldotn free from controversy, or something touching on it. Not that we entertain any hope of convincing the controversialists to whom we reply, or whose arguments we allude to. Almost without exception, they are people whose minds are made up and who argue to support a foregone conclusion rather than to arrive at any better understanding of the troth. Nevertheless our conviction, based on personal experience is that an avoidance of controversy is accountable for a good deal of ignorance. If controversy seldom affects the principals, it must necessarily serve more or less to instruct those who stand by. As a matter of fact people have been converted to Catholicism even by the harangues of Biddy O'Gorman and her confraternity, and for our own part, knowing this, we have never been able to look upon the adventures of such scolds with much discomposure, As to the manner of conducting controversy, no doubt charitable methods are to be observed. But even in charitable methods there may be some difference. It i» charitable to make known the truth, and a man must suit himself tohis surroundings. There are certainly those on whom mildness and polish would be wasted. A man must accommodate his speech to his listeners, or else he throws his words away. There, for example, wa» that Parliament of Religions the other day at Chicago. We conolnda it must be regarded, in some sort, as a controversial meeting. The>

Catholic prelate stated his tenets, and the Brahmin or the bonzs ■taUd bit. The speaker who seems to have gained most popularity and applanse was a learned Hindoo. How many of those who were present, we should like to know, were in a position to form right conclusion?, or to discriminate correctly. Those who were ltarned and keen of intellect, no doubt, could do so. But for the common orowd, the impression must necessarily have been: — Here is an enlightened accommodation to the age, an admission, in effect, that one religion is as good as another. By a common consent of hierarchies all are submitted to us for our choice. It is the right of private interpretation conceded to us freely where religious systems are concerned. There, then, was polished controversy which, for the most part, was, at best, wasted, and which, we hope, may not, in the long run, prove harmful. One occasion only can we recall when there was precedent for such a meeting. That was when Elijah met the prophets of Baal on Mount Oarmel. There, we may remark in passing, was no particular polish— at least on the part of the man of God. We believe in controversy, then, and controversy suited to the calibre of those who are to be rebuked, convinced, or convicted. That, in our eyes, we admit to be the charitable, if not the polished, course. Talking of controversy reminds us— d propos of nothirg, we admit— of the contest between O'Oonnell and Biddy Moriarty. Biddy, it Kerns to us, needs the vates sacer to sustain her credit and offer her apology. O'Oonnell was able to overcome her in political language, only because he had an undue advantage. Biddy had been born out of her timf, and had not received, as she might now-a-days, a scientific grounding. With the rudiments of geometry in her head, O'Oonnell would no doubt have found her a more formidable antagonist Then, perhaps, from an equal arena, Dan migbt have retired, where the nse of th 9 tongue was concerned, much less immortal than was actually the case. The controvertionalisr, in short, most ■nit himself to the capacity— not to the incapacity, of bis opponent. It will cot do for him to leave bis opponent, to the perception of any one, beaten only because he is ignorant. Polish, therefore, for the polished — but plain speaking for those who are plain and rude.

suggested itself to them. Their usurped independence and selfassumed apostolate were sufficient for them— and much more than sufficient, as the Archbishop shows, for those who ventared to question their authority. The lectures now before us give ns three separate views of Christianity in England, negatively and positively furnishing, as the most rev writer claims, strong cumulative proof of what the position is that the Church of England really occupies. The Anglican assumption, that is, the assumption of the High Church party in the Church of England, ie, that the British Church, or the Church established in England before the conqueßt of the country by the Saxons, was possessed of an apostolical succession, derived, not from Borne, but from an eastern source, and most probably from St Paul, who had vißited England in person and converted some at least of the native tribeß. With this assumption the Archbishop deals in his first lecture, adducing proofs, largely from Protestant authorities, to establish, as he does, in the most convincing manner, that it is groundless and quite] unable to stand the test of criticism. His Grace proves also that the Church of the Anglo-Saxons— which had, in point of time, succeeded the British Church, and whose downfall preceded the foundation of the Protestant Establishment— was not identical with the earlier Church — and that, therefore, this early British Church cannot, by any honest stretch of the imagination, be identified as the parent of the present Church of England. The second lecture takes up the positive side of the question and shows, first, what the earlier Church was — that it was a Church in communion with Borne, acknowledging the supremacy of Borne, and holding th 3 doctrine taught by Borne. The writer does not inquire minutely into the particular missionaries to whom the Britons owed their conversion. He to uches merely in passing, on the tradition that a British king named Lucius bad applied to Pope St Eleutherim for missionaries to convert his people, as he says this tradition, though supported by an overwhel ming weight of evidence, has been contradicted by writers of recognised authority. He, however, quotes in a note, testimony to prove that the objections so made are invalid. The question as to the details of conversion, we may add, is compara-