The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1898. BIBLE-READING IN THE STATE SCHOOLS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 12, 22 July 1898, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1898. BIBLE-READING IN THE STATE SCHOOLS.

vX\/)^\/J!fc have received a copy of a circular which has tyva/pvyj/^ been forwarded to Members of both Houses TWlfi^l 1 °^ P aruu ment by the Connnittcc on Biblcs^p* ■N^aj/, reading in the Public schools, appointed by fJlvraJiiy^* Presbyterian. Church of Otago and Southland. We have likewise before us a copy of *>{ *r the pastoral letter of the last Anglican General Synod of New Zealand, dealing with the same subject. Both circular and pastoral letter make a plaint and suggest a remedy. With the plaint — which condemns our godless system of public instruction — we are in cordial agreement. Our Presbyterian friends deplore with us ' the serious defect in our educational system, arising from the exclusion of all moral and religious instruction in the public schools within school hours.' The members of the Anglican Synod are in so far in tune with the Catholic position when they declare that ' it is the duty of every

Christian to set forward to the utmost of his power the education of the young in the fe<ir and love of God ' ; that this duty devolves first and above all on parents ; that no provision of the Church can absolve them from such duty ; that the foundations of religious training must not merely be laid at home, but that ' religious instruction must he largely given elsewhere' — to wit, in the school; that under the present godless system the opportunities of imparting such teaching are quite inadequate and sometimes refused ; that the clergy are too few in number to attend to it ; and that ' the Sunday schools cannot be maintained in sufficient numbers, and, however excellent, they only partially fulfil the required conditions.' Here — in the condemnation of the godless school — we stand on the same platform as our Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist fellow-colonists. Catholics have fought a strenous and sustained battle against godless instruction and in every land. The manifestos of the leading non-Catholic bodies in New Zealand indicate a deep and widespread objection to a system which one class of politicians venerate as a fetish, and look upon a word uttered against it as a sort of Bulgarian atrocity.

Protestant and Catholic are then in cordial agreement as to the evil of banishing God from the school-life of the children of the colony. We differ as to the remedy for this unhappy state of things, and proceed to briefly state our reasons for so doing. The Presbyterian body — and the Anglicans and Methodists are stated to be with them in this — have asked Members of both Houses to use their influence in Parliament to have a plebiscite of the electors throughout the Colony taken on the question : ' Are you in favour of legalising the use in the public schools (under the provision of a time-table and conscience clause) of the Scripture Lesson Book of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland ?'

It is no part of our intention to discuss the value of the Referendum as a political agent. In indifferent matters, and in matters of which the average elector is a sufficient judge, its use might, under proper safeguards, provide a valuable resort to both Government and the people. But if there arc matters that should not be submitted to the R< ferendmn, they are precisely those which affect the rolig ous or political rights of minorities, and, generally, all questions which have aroused, or are likely to arouse, strong pirt.y or sectarian feeling. Such a use of the Referendum opens a gate to wide possibilities of persecution. The education question, or, to speak more correctly, the proposed remedy for the education difficulty — is, to our mind, one of the uon-submittable kind. The question of the Bible in the schools is no trilling problem. Its settlement requires cool heads, a thorough knowledge of the Catholic as well as of the non-Catholic side of the case, a spirit of mutual good-will, and a determination to respect rights of conscience at all hazards. Given these, the solution of the problem is at hand. But, with every respect for both the intelligence and the fair-mindedness of the electors of New Zealand, we do not think that all the conditions requisite for a fair and final settlement of the question, as propounded, by way of Referendum, tire- to be found at the present time.

The introduction of the Irish or any other Scripture Lessons into the State schools, so far from settling the matter, would only replace one grievance by another. The Scripture Lessons would necessarily be read either with or without explanation. (1.) If without explanation : The school-child is left to exercise his own judgment, as best he may, on what he has read. Here we arc at once adopting the bed-rock principle which separates all the Reformed Churches from the Catholic. Again : the child will either ivad in dogma into his lesson, or he will not. If he does, he does so by virtue of the Protestant principle of private judgment. If he does not, what is the value of his reading to him as ' a measure of moral and religious instruction ' ? For moral instruction stands or falls with dogma. In every case, from the Catholic standpoint, the leading of the Scripture Lessons, without explanation or comment, would at once mean the acceptance by the State of a Protestant principle in the schools, i.e., it makes them, in a wide sense, denominational.

(2) But let us suppose the Scripture Lessons, or difficult words in them, to be explained by the teachers. This would not mend matters. Such explanation woald necessarily, in the vast majority of cases bo given by Protestants, of various shades of belief, and ifc would naturally be tinged with their peculiar views and prepossessions. We do not take into account the instances in which the comments would come from the lips of agnostics. There is a multitude of oft-recurring Scripture terms which have a Protestant as well as a Catholic meaning. Take, for instance, such words a1?a 1 ? ' church,' ' penance,' ' forgiveness,' ' grace,' ' salvation,' * faith,' etc. Here again, in the act of explaining even the meaning of the commonest terms of Scripture, you may, under the a^is of the State, as effectually denominationalise a public school in certain matters of doctrine as if it were the Sundayschool of a particular sect. A significant fact in point is mentioned in the Life and Letters of Dr. Whafely, the Protestant Archbishop .of Dublin, who compiled the very books which our Presbyterian friends would introduce into our public schools. In one of his letters the Anglo-Irish prelate expressly stated that he compiled those Scripture Lessons for the Irish National Board of Education in the hope that they might wean the Catholic school-children from ' Popery.' We are far from attributing any such intention to the advocates of Bible-reading in the schools of New Zealand. We mention the fact merely as illustrating the denominational use which, in the opinion of such a man as Dr. Whately, the Scriptures might be turned in the public schools of Ireland — and if in Ireland, why not, despite the best intentions, in New Zealand also ? Add to this the fact that the proposed text-book was rejected by the Irish Catholic bishops, and was subjected to severe criticism by many who are not of our faith.

A conscience clause, whether for teachers, or pupils, or both, furnishes no effective way out of the difficulty. Such a, clause for teachers nullifies, in so far as it is acted upon, the purpose of legislation in favour of Bible-reading in the public schools. The conscience clause contemplated for pupils usually affects only those pupils whose parents, by writing, or at least verbally, desire their exclusion from the Bible classes. A percentage of Catholic pupils would thus be brought within the influence of non-Catholic teaching through the mere indolence of their parents in not complying with formalities. We have, too. an indistinct recollection of cases occurring in New South A Vales which go to show that a certain degree of practical compulsion may be exercised on pupils even under the supposed safeguard of a conscience clause. Even were it put into effectual and constant operation, it marks out the Catholic children as a class apart — a sort of separate caste — and makes them the butts of the other pupils. In Xew South Wales the Scripture lessons, despite their conscience clause, have by no means diminished the sense of grievance felt by the Catholic body. Catholics object strenuously to the paganising of public schools. As matters stand, they likewise object to the adoption in them of Protestant principles of religious . instruction. iThe method proposed by our Presbyterian friends docs not till the lines mapped out by the Anglican Synod : ' A solution [of the school problem] true to the principles of religious liberty, reasonably satisfying the required conditions of religious instruction, and fairly meeting the demands, not of one part only of the Christian community, but of the whole.' We trust, however, that the recognition of the need of such a solution of the difficulty is the first step towards providing for it. We Catholics feel deeply in this mutter, because we realise so fully the tremendous perils and the high possibilities of child life. We try to guard against the one : to evolve the other. In the face of slender resources and double school taxation, we have placed our earnestness in this vital matter beyond the reach of honest doubt. If even one of the wealthier and numerically stronger denominations in the Colony did half as much, the school difficulty would long ago have been a thing of the past.