Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 16 February 1911, Page 290

Notes

The Paper in the School We referred recently to the. success —in certain parts of Americaof the paper-iri-the-school movement. The Catholic Register quotes a writer as giving the following summary of the advantages which follow the adoption of the proposal. 'Teachers,' he says, 'instead of confining themselves to the text-books, should occasionally bring a newspaper into the class-room and read extracts from it for the instruction of the children. It would help to break the dull monotony of school life. Education is'something broader than the four It's and the curriculum as laid down by the School Board. The Catholic paper will give the children a better idea of the big Church to which they belong. It will suggest intelligent questions and answers. It will help to keep them posted on matters which it is well that they should know from an early age. Better than all, it will set the children to inquiring mi their return home why the parents, as often happens', do not take a Catholic paper.' The New Education Act in Queensland The regulations under the Education Act that was recently passed in Queensland to enable religious instruction to be given in the State schools have now been gazetted, and will come into force this year. According to these,' ministers of religion must apply to the Under-secretary', through the School Committees, if they desire to take up the work of denominational instruction; no child must attend to listen to the teaching of any ministers not of his own denomination unless the parent or guardian of the child shall give permission, and if a parent or guardian should desire that no religious instruction should be given to his child,, he can send a notification in writing to"this effect, and a certificate will be issued that the child is exempted from such instruction, and all the books used by ministers of religion in teaching must not be accessible to any child whatever. With regard to selected" Bible lessons given by the teachers, the same exemption can be made and the teachers are to see that the lesson books are not left in the way of children whose parents object to them. *

It will thus be seen that the Queensland ' conscience clause' is the same old weak and halting arrangement which Catholics have so often protested against, and which makes legally possible, if not compulsory, the proselytising

of all Catholic children whose parents or guardians forget or neglect to enter formal protests against it. That little use will be made of this 'safeguard:' is admitted by the Australian Christian World t which gives the foregoing particulars regarding the new regulations. ' The conscientious convictions of the people,' it complacently remarks, 'are safeguarded in every way. Bat it is very probable that very little practical use will be made of these safeguards, though, of course, it was necessary to make them. The ministers that attend will probably aim rather to impart the essential truths of religion and the knowledge of the Bible to the children, than to inculcate sectarian opinions, and those who are so opposed to religion as to wish to keep their children away from it are few.' And the same paper lets out one of the secrets of the enthusiasm with which some of the non-Catholic religious bodies work for the establishment of the. New South Wales, system. ' 'And as all Churches,' it remarks, ' are equally advantaged by it (the new system), it will lessen the possibility of any Church obtaining a subsidy for their educational institutions, and will thus strengthen the national system of education' which has so successfully been established in the State.'