A SUGGESTED FORWARD MOVEMENT ON THE EDUCATION QUESTION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 10 January 1907, Page 12

A SUGGESTED FORWARD MOVEMENT ON THE EDUCATION QUESTION

To the Editor

Sir,— As a subscriber to your paper and a constant reader of -it, "I may claim permission to add a fewideas to the discussion which has happily arisen in your correspondence columns on. the education question. 'Ihc credit of beginning, th.3 discussion is due to the stimulating and suggestive letter of Mr. J. A. Scott, . ,M.A. That the religious education of our children occupies a 'foremost place in the .minds of all Catholic parents goes without saying. Many non-Ca-t/hblic par.'en'ts, too, are of the same way of thinking. The differeuce between both classes hitherto has _ been that ' 'non-Catholic parents have put themselves to no particular pecuniary expense to give their children a religious ■ training ; tihey have rested- satisfied with the ordinary home-training and Lhe litile that can be done -for- an hour once a '"week in the Sunday school. It has been " quite otherwise" with Catholics* They .have not' re-, ma-incd contented with a little grumbling at - annual meetings; they have built their ,o.wn <\ schools ; .they have equipped them and supported, bodies of teachers; At the same lime ""they have been Compelled to contribute ,to • the upkeep of a system of education to which they are conscientiously opposed— a system of halfeducation; morally defective and godless. hi order to bring up their ' children in a religious atmosphere and —under a system of 'moral and religious. training, Catholics have undertaken the teaching of the ."sejbular subjects of , instruction, and have thereby re- ; lievod the Government of a heavy DurdenT- I should " ■ think the number of children in the Catholic schools of New Zealand exceeds^ten thousand. We must never forget that our Government undertakes to give primary 'instruction in secular subjects to all the clAldren of the Colony, We Catholics, influenced by conscientious liioXives, 4o this work for the Government and up to the Government requirements" every year, in the case of ",000 children ! We get nothing for doing this work— • ( the Government's own self-assumed work. -They let us go on doing it. without any regard to gratitude: fair play, or just treatment. The , secular - teachers ' pass l ttieir pupils in the standards and get remunerated for their work ; the Catholic teachers, besides giving their pupils a moral and religious training, pass thousands ot them in the State-appointed standards, and they do not get so much as ' Thank you.' They do the work for the Government and are not paid. Catholic

parents pay for the support of their own teachers and they, contribute their quota, in taxation, towards' the payment of the -secular .teachers amd the upkeep of the secular schools ! And; the strange part of it is that we, Catholic parents, have become so used to tlAs sort of treatment,, our necks have become so bowed to the yoke, that for some time we , have been going on paying . this double tax -quietly, and silently, just as if the once sharply agitated .education question had been settled fairly and squarely,' aM wibh no /cause of convplaint left to any one. \ we, Catholic parents, have not for y.ears raised a voice nor dipped a pen in _ink to protest! Our continued conscientious sacrihee in do--ing, at our personal * expense, a work which a'paternal Government undertakes to do, after „_ its 'own fashion,"' for us and ' actually l does for all othe s, through the public funds, tells very well for our sincerity and patience, but not quite so well for our manliness or our ability to maintain our rights. Many 1 call O'lir patient, silent, annual payment of the double school-tax imbecile ~ weakness and cowardice, b rench Catholics, many of them are, I am told, remarkable for their meekness and humility.' The French Ministry and Senate take advantage of these (in" the proper place) admirable qualities,' and the cable every weekflashes to us the lamentable results. Manliness,, selfreliance, activity aid virtues— virtues absolutely necessary 'in our age. The-: man who sat on the bank and prayed Jupiter to., come and lift his cart? out of the ditoh got an answer from 'heaven which we Catholic- j>ar- *- ents might apply to ourselves. The gentle inoffensiveness of the young sheep, most, especially if displayed by a large body of jr people, enduring a great national wrong, has nothing very - estimable in it. At no 'time have energy, intelligence, and enterprise been moie ap-

predated than now,

Ours is called truly the pragmatic

age. We have left far behind the slow-coach ways of r a hundred' years ago. Hence it is that Mr.. Scott's " letter, with its trumpet-call .to be up and doing, has stirred into expression the thoughts of dissatisfaction

which have for some mne been lying half-formed and chaotic, in many minds. Hence .it is that for th© past few weeks I have heard many Catholics speaking- in~

appreciative terms of. this, young laymaii's earnestness and initiative. The desire for an active agitation an>d a 'bold declaration of. our right to a" share in the educational grant, is not at all dead in the Catholic community. How could it be? Our yoke-hardened necks have not yet become quite so callous ; neither have our brains become so softened* and stupified by our continued silent submission to ' a system of tyranny, oppression, and plunder.'. The Catholic body ardently desires that some capable men should take up the Catholic education* claim and, with voice and spur, push it into the public prominence it deserves. Have we got such men amongst us ? I 'have no doubt of it: We are by inheritance a brainy people. ' The natural ability of the race to which the vast majority of. us lelongs has often made up for the .want of technical opportunity. I feel sure that there is. amongst us Catholics, amongst laity and clergy, much more power, talent, and information than our modesty permits' us to assume. One of our defects is too much modesty, born of ages of repression and persecution. But let the field be cleared.; let the call to action be sounded. -Then the movement, revived '•and started fearlessly on its course, v,*Al elicit ways and means and bchemes and ability galore. Really the great thing -in a public movement is ! ' to keep constantly forging onward. 'It is dogged that does it.' v Unlike those paper constitutions drawn «p,-*"as i "we have-read, by political philosophers— paper constitutions so perfect and yet so worthless— public movements cannot be planned neat, complete, and square at the outset, with rules and regulations to be carried out like a railway timetable, No ; they arise from- some pressing need and, as they roll on/ they take shape from circumstances' and opportunities seized upon and utilised by capable men. They follow the lines of natural growth rather than of architectural plans. .The essential element in them is life, movement, persevering action. So it is.' that the land agitation and the Home Rule agitation arose and gathered strength in Ireland. Some able men (few of them had, I ween, university degrees) kept working on in sunshine and storm, mostly, in storm, turning every chance to good, account, and lb ! the~ results: Keep pegging away ; 'it - is. dogged that does it.' Twentyfive years ago Home .Rule had little hold in England, Scotland, and Wales. Twenty-five .years ago Parnell, Dillon, and- T. P. O ! Connor werebooh-ed on the streets and hissed on the platforms - of places like Manchester, Salford, and Glasgow. To-day the members for these •places a£e pledged Home Rulers ! A dozen years ago, to come nearer home, the prohibition party regarded as unworthy of notice— a wretched little clique of brainless, dyspeptic, half-male persons. But they have kept

pegging away; giving and receiving hard knocks, and now they have * vast majorities not alone in some country electorates, .but also in some considerable towns ; "and their persistence ..bids fair to sweep the Colony. What"" activity, combination, 'and perseverance can do is illustrated by the extraordinary. . influence which. 30,000 Freemasons exeicise over 38,000,000 people' in Jb ranee. Our - Catholic newspapers keep telling us how this comparatively small body machines the ' Bloc,' one-third of - the electors, and through the 'Bloc' secures the return of the desired class,~6f candidates. It is quite clear the heads of those Grand Orient lodges do not doze away their time in dreamy inaction. 'Obviously, they keep thinking, planning, acting, and 'so achieve_ those extraordinary things. For a long time, one jof their great objects has been to drive Christian' education out -of their schools of their country. They have succeeded." In imitation of them, infidels, rationalists, and a kind of ' liberal ' "semi-Christian are planning to do the same in almost all the countries of the world. In many parts of the linglish-speaking world ■ they -have alieady succeeded. Why not resist thought, activity, and zeal in a bad cause by superior thought, activity, and zeal in the Christian cause? ',It is dogged- that does it.,'— l am, etc., Invercargill, December" 24.

PARENT.