The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1911. 'CATHOLICS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM'

New Zealand Tablet, 16 March 1911, Page 481

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1911. ' CATHOLICS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM'

■JSm V — Tr , Wfim he recent Pastoral of Dr. Cleary—in which he M |ij6 J| dealt, in a comprehensive way, with the school fll®'* question in New Zealand evoked editorial comment in most' of our . leading dailies and J ' tllG ,nonoto,iy with which they have all harped 0,1 the same stnn g has at least this comPtion, that the one reply will do for all. X&& y Dr. Cleary has replied specifically to the WelW* lington Evening Post; but the considerations . he advances are so general in their application; and go so directly and completely to the bed-rock of the whole question, that his reply might have appeared with absolute appositeness and relevancy in any one of the papers in which his original position was criticised. The issue now raised and pressed by his Lordship is one which lies light back of all the arguments which are commonly advanced, either for or against our education system. The principle which he is engaged in : placing in its proper place in the forefront of the discussion is a master principle, to which all others do tribute. What Dr. Cleary is pressing for, with courteous but relentless persistency, is a statement as to the root principle on which professedly Christian editors justify their exclusion of religion from the school life of the child. Both secularists and antisecularists agree that education is a preparation for life and the responsibilities of life.’ On what view of life, on what philosophic basis, on what groundwork educational principle do the press upholders of the secular system justify the elimination of religion from the formative process of school work? If our secularist friends decline or la‘l to face this issue, the thinking and observant section of the public will duly note both the fact audits significance. It, on the other hand, they attempt to give a straightforward and unequivocal reply to Dr. Cleary’s searching question, they will realise, perhaps for the first time, exactly where they stand, and under which banner they are fighting the standard of the Cross or the black flag of rank atheism. The Evening Post leader, in reply to Bishop Cleary s present letter, is before us; and without anticipating his Lordship’s further rejoinder, we may say that so far the Wellington paper has utterly failed to make so much as an attempt at facing the clear issue raised by Dr. Cleary. We print Dr. Cleary’s letter in full, asking our readers to note carefully the definite, precise exnlicit point which the Evening Post f-was called upon to meet Jho letter, addressed to the editor of the Post, runs thus: ’ "A* To the Editor, Evening Post. ‘ Sir,—l have made a somewhat belated perusal of two of your recent editorial articles on the education question In both, you favored me with marked attention, and accompanied this with a personal compliment for which I hereby

tender my cordial thanks. You will, however, pardon me for saying that your readers have received; thus far, no enlightenment as to the ground-work principles on which you base your advocacy of the exclusion of religion from the State system of public instruction. You may, indeed, plead, in extenuation, that the politicians and journalists whose views you share have left the public equally in the dark. “ ’Tis true tis pity, and pity tis ’tis true”after all those years of waiting. Both secularists and anti-secularists agree that education is a preparation for life and the responsibilities of life. And the numerous friends of Christian education in New Zealand are entitled, even at this Tate hour, to know on what philosophy of life, on what educational principle, so powerful a moral agency as religion is excluded from the formative process of school-work; why it is there treated as of no practical use or value as a national asset; why, in a Christian land, the refining influences which created the Christian homo should be banished from the public school; why childhood’s incomparable Exemplar and Ideal should be barred, under legal penalties, from contact with His “little ones” during the working hours of the system. ‘We Catholics give our hearty approval to two of the three “planks” of our public-school system: namely, to its “free” and “compulsory” clauses. Against its third, or “secular” phase, faithful Catholics object on definite grounds of religion and conscience, and they use the system sorely against their grain, and only where our lack of means and of teachers gives them no other alternative but these two: on the one side, ignorance and its consequent disabilities; and, on the other, the penalties provided by the compulsory clauses of what has been termed (heaven knows why) our “Education” Act. ‘lt is a circumstance of great significance and suspicion that the divorce of religion from the schools was devised and engineered by the enemies of the Christian faith in France and (as can be amply and even terribly demonstrated), that, to this hour, the foes of all religion on Continental Europe rely upon the secular and professedly “neutral” public school to empty all belief in God and revelation out of the hearts of the rising generation. In this religious controversy — this war upon religion in the school our allegedly “neutral” State has taken sides. And the side which it has taken happens, strangely enough, to be,—materially at least, and upon the surface of it—that of the aggressive atheists of Continental Europe. Take it how .yon will, this circumstance has, from the Christian point of view, a very ugly and menacing look. It is a matter that needs, and needs urgently, strenuous explanation. -t-S. v ‘ Now, the Continental atheistic advocates of the secular public school base their action ./upon a false philosophy of life. They hold that there-is no God, no immortal soul, no after-life of reward or punishment; that death ends all; that religion is (to put it mildly) a huge blunder. Right reason as well as revelation, forbids our acceptance of such a view of life. But if it were to be accepted, it would naturally follow that religion should form no part of the preparation for life, that it should be excluded from any and every part of the school curriculum. For we must ever bear in mind that, pedagogy (which is the science of training children for life) is intimately bound up w ith, and depends upon, a philosophy of life. ‘The position taken up in regard to the schools, by the European enemies of religious faith, is, of course,^ {xerverse and wrong-headed to a degree. But it is at" east consistent and intelligible. Now, on what grounds do you defend a system which was devised and intended for the destruction of religious faith in France? You intimate that ■ you are not influenced by any motive of hostility to religion when you stand for its exclusion, under civil penalties, from its olden and immemorial place in education. It is well to have this soothing assurance, and to know that it applies likewise to many others who are with* you in your propaganda. We are interested in know 7 ing_ the principles on which you do NOT advocate the banishment of religion from the schools. We are vastly more interested in the principles (if any) on which you DO advocate it. You can adequately defend the secular system only on some philosophy of life, or as an educational principle based upon a philosophy of life. Atheists thus defend the secular system ; Catholics and great numbers of Protestants thus defend religion in the schools. Atheists and Christians both know their principles precisely, and act consistently with them, and are ever ready to state them on demand. Either you can defend the secular system by such an appeal to groundwork principles, or you cannot. If you cannot, I submit that you ought to say so frankly. If you can, “carle in to.vola ,” as the Italians say ; show your “ cards,” set forth your principles. The friends of religious education are entitled to require such a straightforward statement, seeing that we are compelled to “ pay, pay, pay ” for your (or kindred) philosophical views, although we have not the remotest notion as to what these views are; nor, if we did know, ■ would we be at all likely to accept them. The statement of these groundwork principles has been, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, “ lan" a-comin’.” We have bc?i. waiting for them for thirty years and more. Why this persistent concealment? Is it not high time to unlock the arcanum and take them out of the cotton-wool and place them on exhibition? Or are the enemies of religion in the schools afraid that their basic principles would “ go bad,” like unfixed photographic plates, if exposed to the light of day?

'Here are a few of the many pertinent queries in point that occur to me: (1) Do you object to religion in the State-subsidised system, on some principle of life-philosophy or of child-training (pedagogy) You may possibly plead that religion has no rightful place, or at least no necessary place, in school-life. (a) If so, on what particular principles do you base such a plea? (b) Do these principles also require the banishment of religion from the upbringing o? children in the home? Either they do, or they do not. If they do, we believing Christians will duly make a note of the circumstance. If they do not, on what principles of life-philosophy or of education do you favor religion as a factor in the home-training of the child, and condemn religion in his school-training? Why subject youth to opp'osite influences in the home and in the school? And if you black-ball religion in the school, on what principle do you retain it in any relation of life ? Again (2): Do you approve of the union of religion and public instruction AS A GENERAL PRINCIPLE? And do you object to it in a State-subsidised system, not IN ITSELF, and not on any principle of LIFE-PHILOSOPHY or of CHILDTRAINING (pedagogy), but solely on account of some practical difficulties which you foresee or on account of some consideration of social convenience or political expediency? There are other questions galore to ask; but these get to the root of the matter, to the principles underlying the differences that exist between us. Let us, in the name of reason and good sense, get back to some common bed-rock ground or principle from which we can start. Otherwise this discussion will be a waste of time and energy. Catholic principles in education you know. The French atheist principles in favor of the secular system wo know. But what are yours? 'Your statement of your underlying principles will, in great part, determine whether, in your estimation, our State treats Christ as an "undesirable alien in the schools —by way of showing its educational friendliness to Him (as you appear to maintain); or whether it does so —by way of manifesting its " neutrality " towards Him (as you likewise seem to hold). -'" There is one other possible alternative, which I am at present loth to consider: that God and religion are barred out of the secular system here, as on Continental Europe by its inventors and patentees, with the conscious purpose and intent of uprooting all belief in revealed truth. We shall, I hope, know better where we stand when you have said your say. 'But, even then, much may remain to say on many pointsas, for instance, on the alleged "neutrality" of the secular system. If you permit me, I think I can, at the proper time, furnish you with abundant grounds of fact and argument for holding that no system of education can, in regard to religion, be "neutral"; that our secular system is as dogmatic and " sectarian" and denominational," in very real senses, as it well can be; that, in a word, its vaunted "neutrality" is all a sham.. Pardon me the use of this ugly word, " sham." I employ it, not because I like it, but because I can find no milder term to express what I feel and know in this matter. This is said incidentally, not with any intent of distracting your attention from the underlying issues, but to indicate a course into which I propose, if you permit me, to direct this discussion when the proper time comes. —Yours, etc., * HENRY W. CLEARY, D.D. Bishop of Auckland. March 6, 1911. * In adopting the foregoing line of treatment, and pinning the opponents of religious education down to the fundamental question, Dr. Cleary has, we venture to think, hit upon much the best and most effective method of bringing out and bringing home the true inward drift and effect of the secular system. The more deeply one delves into the question, the more evident it becomes that, at root, the education controversy is a conflict, not between Protestants and Catholics, but between religion and rank atheism. We are speaking, of course, not of the personnel of those who may have been in the past, or who may be in the immediate present, supporters of the secular policy, but of the ground principle on which alone that policy can be justified. It has proved to bo so, beyond question, in France; and the allegedly ' neutral' schools are now being used deliberately by the State for the diabolic purpose of obliterating all trace of belief in God and revelation from the hearts and minds of Christ's little ones. Does anyone say that there is not the faintest trace of the French spirit in this country, and that the danger at which Dr. Cleary hints is unreal and fantastic? Let him turn to page 15 of Professor Mackenzie's recent pamphletreferred to in another column read the following:—" Tho Continent of Europe is teaching us how to deal with irreconcilables in politics and religion. The State is founded on a natural and rational ethic (the product and resultant of an ever widening and developing social and civic experience). When the interests of a religious cult- go counter to the State . ethic, sooner or later the religious cult comes to grief. When ecclesiastical bodies, Catholic or non-Catholic, take to ways that are dark in political manipulation, it may be necessary for the State, from a sense of self-preservation, to ask ecclesiastical intriguers, not merely to take up their beds, but to take up their,

schools and churches, and walk.' The State in New Zealand has taken the first fateful step, and has entered the domain of dogma by setting up a system which necessarily rests — as Dr. Cleary' showed at length in his Pastoral — on a whole set of implied Secularist or Agnostic dogmas. I Having thus taken the atheistic side in a religious controversy between Atheists and Christians is it not likely (as in France) to go still further, and, when the opportune time comesthrough the weakening of religious faith or the growth of the materialistic spirit to turn its school system into a positive propaganda of dogmatic atheism. France has trod that path ; and—with University professors holding the Continent up for our admirationwhy- not New Zealand? Dr. Cleary's warning should bo preached from the, house tops. '