THE EDUCATION QUESTION AT HOME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIII, Issue 42, 14 February 1896, Page 6

THE EDUCATION QUESTION AT HOME.

WHAT THE SPECTATOR HAS TO SAT.

A leading article which lately appeared in the Spectator in connec tion with the resolutions on education in Ireland issued by the Irish bi-hopp, will be read with great interest by Catholics in New Zealand : — " That it will be necessary for the Unionist Government to come to close quarters with the Irish education question if not in the uext session, at least in the earlier part of the new Parliament's life, is a fact wbicb will be admitted on all band?. But dealing with the question of Irish education— elementary, intermediate, and academic —means deling with the RomaD Catbolis Church in Ireland, that ifl, with the Irish Hierarchy. It is no sort of good to reconstitute or rehandle Irieh educa ional problems on abstract grounds, or for politicians^and official?, sitting at tbeir desks, to say such and such a system is tba beet fiUed for a country divided like Ireland, between conflicting eectn, or to insist, because a suggested scheme is in the abs'net fair ami reasonable, that therefore the Irish Catholic Church ought to be able to cccept it— must, indeed, ultimately accept it with gratitude, because it is so obviously fair and reasonable. For minute theoretical injustices or aj paient partialities we care nothing. As long as the State can and does prevent individual and practical uufairnesp, it muet not worry about what is after all, only political symmetiy Tbe great object is to find out exactly what the Irish bishops and prießts want, and what they regiird as the^scheme that will satisfy them and give them not their abstract rights perhaps, or wha' an im parti, 1 third pers n would call thur rights, but what they themselves consider t<> oi n, e ir ngh v. This having been discovered, it should be the duty of the Government to try to meet the views of

the Catholic'Ohuroh as liberally and aejcompletely as|they can, with* oat, however, doing anything to infringe the true principles of'religioas liberty. Under these circumstances it is most fortunate' that the Irish Bishops should have just now formulated their views in regard to the various branches of the Irish education question, and moßt important that all who are interested in the Irish question as a Iwhole should study these views in detail. Now we are bound to [say i that in our opinion there is nothing in these demands to which honest objection may be taken. Personally, we think that Roman Oatholics, like other people, are better for a wide and liberaV;education,'and that Buch a wide and liberal education can be morejsatisfactorily obtained in edncational establishments like those of (Oxford or [Cambridge, where all creeds are welcomed and treated with fairness and |with due respect for their special religions views than in close and confined colleges where Roman Catholics will be in immediate contact with none but their co-religionists. But if the 'spiritual leaders of the Irish Catholics think otherwise, that is their affair, not ours, and the responsibility for the mistake, if mistake'there is, will be theirs. When they say clearly : " We will be satisfiediwithnothingUeßslthan the educational segregation of Catholics," it is our duty to bow, for there is no sort of infringement of the true principles of religious liberty. No Protestant or Agnostic] is injured by the establishment of a Catholic university, and by the Oatholics having the educational system they like swhen he has the university which he prefers. The notion that the Protestant is injured because part of the Queen's taxes which.be paye'willigo to the Catholic university, is futile and absurd. If he is injured, how much more the Quaker when a new ironclad is '[launched, or the materialis who regardsfall religion as degrading superstition, when the chaplains' salaries are'voted in the army and navy estimates, or when the House of Commons pays for its own prayers. In our opinion, then, the Government may grant to the full demand of'the Bishops as regards a Catholic university, without doing any (injury to the Protestants, What the Bishops say as to intermediate education, it seems to ue, is a reasonable demand. Provided that there is an appeal so the Irish Education Office, it seems only fair that a board which deals with more {Catholic schools than ProtestantSones, i should have a majority of Catholics. Tbe question i 9 clearly one un which the Government could make a reasonable settlement. The question of primary education is, of course, far more complicated. In regard to the main contention, however, we have no hesitation. We Bee no sort o! reason why, in a echool attended exclusively by Catholic children, a Catholic atmosphere should not prevail. We can pretend to no special sympathy with thoaa who think that the minds of the young caDnot be ibfluenced for good without the display of symbols; but if t the Roman Catholics thiak so, we are dead against any attempt to prevent them acting on their belief. We should, of course, pro'ect Protestant children from proselytism at all costß ; but it is both ridiculous and ungenerous to say that what are purely Catholic schools shall not be conducted in the <_nly way in which Catholics consider schools can be properly conducted, because in theory a Sta'e school ought to be always in a condition which would make it at any moment theoretically acceptable to a Protestant parent. By no means will we keep up the theory of a neutral atmosphere when it merely worries the Catholics and does not protest anybody. Mr Morley, we know, had not the courage or the inclination to rtmedy this grievance as the Bishopß suggest, but we hope and trust that Mr Gerald Balfour will show th it he has both more sympathy and more boldness in attacking the problem. Taking the Irish education question aa a whole, it seems to as that the Bishop's resolutions have very greatly advanced its solution. Whai they ask iB, in our opinion, quite capable of being granted with perfect fairnass to Irish Protestantß ; and, therefore, we desire most strorigly to press on the Government the need for thorough, timely, and generous action,