"TURK, JEW, OR INFIDEL MAY ENTER HERE BUT NOT A PAPIST."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 22, 28 September 1894, Page 17

"TURK, JEW, OR INFIDEL MAY ENTER HERE BUT NOT A PAPIST."

k^sSk FIRST cousin o f the A.P.A of the United States * Wmsr haS JUst Seen the light in Moa Creek > °ta?o iWffiS^ nhe loCal School committee ob ject to a teacher $|M& because of her happening to be a Roman Catholic. \jj£jW From time to time, acting on information received from trustworthy sources, we have commented on the unfairness with which Catholic applicants were treated in the matter of school appointments lhe advocates of the public school system have always loudly denied the truth of the statements made by our correspon dents, and proudly boasted that common justice was done in every Cdso to all, irrespective of religioas differences. The published minutes of the last meeting of the Education Board clearly show the possibility and probability and actuality ot bigotry and injustice in the selection of school teachers. In August last the Moa Creek Committee requested the Board to send on a teacher as soon as possible witnout going through the form of submitting names The Board selected Miss White for the position, and notified the committee by wire of the appointment. The secretary of the committee wired back, " Committee cannot accept ; ' In a letter of explanation the statement was made that 'the com mittee could not accept Miss White because of her religion At last meeting the Education Board recommended the committee to waive their objection, and give Miss White a cord.al reception. Our Dnnedin morning contemporary thus makes editoral comment on this incident, specially painful to secularists because of the wide publicity it has now received • lbe Moa Creek committee object to Miss White because she is a Roman Catholic. That is the long and short of the Tf ter ;/f k \T A Seem f Clear thafc the committee delegated to the Board the right of making a selection and then refused to accept the person appointed on account of her religious persuasion. It is a clear case of the sectarian spirit— the spirit of bigotry and religious intolerance — invading the management of the educational affairs of a district ; and the majority of our readers must have been pained, not to say disgusted, when they read that the committee suggested that the fact of Miss White being a Roman Catholic would make it very unpleasant for the teacher and also for the committee. It is even hinted that a Roman Catholic teacher might have difficulty in obtaining residential accommodation !....« Happily " con tinnes the Tinus, " the state of mind which prevails'at Moa

Creek is as singular as it is objectionable, and it cannot be too generally known that the Board has a considerable number of Eoman Catholic teachers in- its service doing excellent work and living harmoniously with all sections of the community. The Aloa Creek incident has the distinction of being « solecism." We have no hesitation in accepting the assertion of our contemporary that the Roman Catholics who have accepted service under the Education Board work conscientiously with their pupils apd live harmoniously with the people of the district, but we should like to know exactly what is meant by the words " considerable number/ We are given to understand that the "considerable number" is under half-a-dozen. We ask for enlightenment on this point. The Times says that the " Moa Creek incident has the distinction of being a solecism." What does the editor mean? By a " solecism," Stormouth tells us, we are to understand " any glaring deviation from the established usage of a language in speaking or writing." The word is now applied to the matter of appointment of Otago teachers. If there is question of the "private sifting " by school committees, on a religious persuasion basis, being made public by the independent members of an education board, we agree that the Moa Cre?k incident is a " solecism." It has happened onee — just once too often — and will never happen again. Discimus errando. "We learn by making mistakes." Partisan committees will be wiser another time. If there is question of the " spirit of bigotry and religious intolerance " shown when committees "do their own sifting," we are sorry we cannot agree with onr Dowling street contemporary. Leaving out of question the not unfrequent complaints made by reliable correspondents in other parts of the Colony, we ask the editor of the Times to study the history of a school committee contiguous to the Moa Creek just men. If he had sent a reporter to the Lauder district before writing his article, he would easily have ascertained from the general feeling of the place that publicity in the Press does not always follow action showing the "spirit of bigotry and religious intolerance " of school committees. He would have found that the Moa Creek incident, as far as the feeling of the committee was concerned, was but the repetition in a short space of time and a few miles off of the Lauder incident. " Solecism," in view of much that we have learned, is a very unfortunate word. One idea is forced upon us. We have frequently heard children distinguishing between the Protestant or State schools and Catholic or private schools. From many cases which nave come under our notice — and the Moa Creek incident is but the last of its kind — there is much truth in the assertion that our Protestant neighbours shamelessly take our money to effectively help them in advancing the interests of their particular denomination.