ANGLICANS AND RELIGION IN EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 24, 9 October 1896, Page 17

ANGLICANS AND RELIGION IN EDUCATION.

IP

HE Right Rev. Dr. Nevill, Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, delivered a lecture on Tuesday evening at St. Paul s Schoolroom, Dunedin, on " Religious Education in State Schools." The lecture was delivered under the auspices of the Public Schools Education League. Thirty-five persons were present. The occasional addresses of his Lordship at synod and public meetings show his great desire to so amend the present system that religious teaching and secular instruction may no longer be divorced in the national system of this Colony. Unfortunately the Bishop and a few earnest co-workers among clergy and laity do not secure the hearty and loyal co-opera-tion of Anglicans throughout Otago. Indeed, looking at the whole Colony, the action of Anglican enthusiasts in the matter of religion in public schools has done little more than furnish argument to be used by secularists against the feasibility of conceding Catholic claims. It is said jmssim :" If we give aid to Catholic schools, Anglicans will require similar grants, and the whole fabric of our public schools organisation will collapse or suffer material injury." Mr. E. B. Cargill, one of the pillars of Dunedin Presbyterianism, who moved the thanks vote to Bishop Nevill, did not

voice extensive Protestant feeling when he said : "If the result of State education, was to dissociate religion from education the sooner it broke down and perished the better, and it would do so." The very general determination among the non-Catholic laity and a large proportion of the Protestant class is to maintain at all costs the present free system with its plums in scholarships and appointments. Bishop NEvrLiiWill not succeed in arousing his people to follow him even in the effort to secure a modicum of religion in education. Most of his own congregation, like Mr. Georok Fknwick, " give respectful and interested attention" to everything the Bishop says on the subject, but are careful to avoid committing themselves to agreement with the views of their spiritual leader. Anglicans are apathetic. The New Zealand public requires something more than a few published addresses on the question before coining to the conclusion that real earnestness and thoroughness of purpose characterise the school agitation in the Church of England. Catholics are invited from time to time to ally themselves with Anglicans. No doubt if the two denominations, with combined and decided effort, pressed the solution of the question of religion in schools, satisfactory progress would be quickly made. However, can they who have done so little to show sincerity, expect that the people who have done so much will enroll themselves under a standard in which the word compromise is clearly inscribed. Catholics want something definite— our own money to educate after our own fashion our own children in our own schools. We want Catholic education for Catholic children. Our programme is well defined and unmistakeable. Solidarity en thescheol queation is not characteristic of Anglicans. Divergence of views plainly indicates division. Some advocate the Scripture lessons. Others would be satisfied if only the Bible were read. Others again want opportunity for giving religious instruction during school hours. Dr Nevill is perfectly outspoken. He prefers denominationalism — pure and simple — to any other form of education. He recognises that he will not get what he wants and so he strives for the nearest approach to it — religious instruction during school hours by authorised ministers of religion. He does not exclude the Scripture Lessons scheme, but he wishes " spiritual application to be given to the dry bones of the school teachers' lesson." Dr Nevill is not a believer in Bible-reading, or even reading of selected Scripture lessons, as a remedy for existing dissatisfaction. At the meeting on Tuesday night he said "he knew that there were many excellent and devout men among our school teachers, but after the public statements made by some of them it was folly to think that they could be so safely trusted with the moulding of souls that the ministers of religion might sleep in peace." The Catholic hierarchy of England have turned away in disgust from alliance with the Anglican body, which, on a recent important occasion, had not the backbone to resist temptation to compromise. It is quite evident that nothing is to be gained by seeking union with colonial Anglicans. The union of a stronu force with an apathetic disunited body fringes on the absurd. We must fight our own battles. Catholics only, as a body, have so far raised aloft and fought under the standard of religion in education.