The Test of Sincerity

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 51, 21 December 1905, Page 22

The Test of Sincerity

In a recent issue of the ' Irish Catholic,' Mr. M. Nolan (Christchurch) gives Home readers some idea of the great sacrifices that our co-religionists in New Zealand are making for the cause of religious education. ' The annual capitation grant,' says he, ' for the children in the State schools is £5, but it is well known that this sum is utterly inadequate unless in very large schools or in populous districts. At the present time there are, roughly speaking, 11,000 children attending the Catholic schools of the Colony. And the present system was established in 18,7,7, as I have said, 28 years ago. Now if, for the sake of avoiding exaggeration, we strike an average, and put down the number of Catholic children attending our schools at 8000, this number, multiplied by five, the number of pounds, would give a sum of £40,000 a year, which the Catholics of New Zealand are absolutely saving to the State by educating their own children. If we multiply this sum by 28, the number of years the secular system is in vogue, we get the immense sum of £1,120,000. But this is not all, for the £5 capitation grant does not provide for the erection of school buildings, nor for school requisites. If we take an average of one hundred children to each school, it will work out at 110 schools for 11,000 children, which, with the cost of sites, buildings, and school requisites, would amount, at the lowest estimate, to £600 for each ' building, thfls making a total, for sites, buildings, and requisites, of £66,000, which, if added to the previous sum, totals £1,18:6,000, which the Catholics, practically, have already put into the pockets of the Protestant ratepayers of the Colony ; and the thing continues and grows in its cruelty worse and worse every year.'

In this connection we might recall the striking comparison recently offered by the Rev. Henry Van Rensselaer, S.J., in a speech to the Knights of Columbus in Carnegie Hall, New York. ' A great capitalist,' said he, 'is praised for giving 10,000,000 dollars (£2,000,000) to education. The Church has given 300,000,000 dollars (£60,000,000) for school buildings and 40,000,000 dollars (£8,000,000) more to pay the teachers, in building up the parish school system. We are called un-American,' said Father Van Rensselaer, ' because we will not worship the public school, an idol of which the upper part is gold and the feet are clay.' Only one result of these sacrifices was touched upon by the speaker, but the figures he gave are sufficiently significant. ' There are,' said he, ' 60,000 divorces in this country (the United States) in one year, and I ask where these people got their moral education. A Judge in this city (New York) said that fifty-six cases were on his calendar on one day, and only one was between Catholics— probably for a separation.'