The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1911. THE 'POST' CRIES OFF

New Zealand Tablet, 20 April 1911, Page 721

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1911. THE 'POST' CRIES OFF

sggm : —* <f?jsjfraff* HE Evening Post, finding that things were fWliGu getting too hot to be comfortable, has declared *t_J ill® 4 the controversy closed which has been proceedJl¥\ {I «&» ing in its columns for the past two or three «rt<3=2£>j weeks. between the Right Rev. Dr.. Cleary on XV the one hand, an( the Wellington paper itself &§& on the other. As things were going, it was \J&W* ■■'■'.time for the Post to shut down. Unless and jp* until the Post pen-driver fairly faced and straightforwardly answered the issues origins ally raised by Dr. Cleary, the discussion could necessarily get no further. That the Post could not, and would hot, face the music has long been evident;" and having sufficiently emphasised the paper's failure, and at the same time pressed home upon, Post and public alike the true, view-point from which the consideration of this great question must be approached, Dr. Cleary himself had no particular object —for the presentpursuing the matter further. His main purposethat of putting the question in its true perspective and of getting the .discussion right side up—has been amply . achieved and the considerations he has advanced may easily be elaborated and strengthened from time to time. * The outstanding feature of the recent controversy has been the Post's persistent evasion— start to finish of the argumentof the simple, clear-cut points that were in issue in the discussion. These have been stated and restated, repeated and reiterated, by Dr. Cleary in such a way as to leave the Post without the semblance of a pretext for not fairly facing them. Reduced to their simplest terms, the issues raised and pressed by Dr. Cleary may be thus expressed: (1) Do you, or do you not, admitwith Spencer, and educationists generally—that education is 'a preparation for life.' (2) Do you," or do you not, admit that, by consequence, the character of the education given must, necessarily and logically, be based on the view of life adopted. (3) On what view of life—or principle of childtraining based on a specific view of life— you justify the exclusion of religion from the formative process of school work? These queries are not merely pertinent—are essential and fundamental. To attempt to discuss what forms of religion are to be taught in the schools, and under what conditions, before having settled the previous question, is to reverse the proper logical process. The question of religion versus no-religion (irreligion) in the schools comes first— must be threshed out and settled before a consistent and coherent system can be built up. Recognising this, Dr. Cleary has stuck, from first to last, to the root-principle involved; and has refused to allow himself to be drawn from the fundamental issue. There were two ways in which the Post might honorably . have met the situation in which it found itself in face of Dr. Cleary's pointed queries, (a) It might have acknowledged the weakness of its position; and frankly admitted that, on going more deeply into the question, it found itself unable, on any Christian principle or view of life, to jusivfy the exclusion of religion from the schools. Or (b), if it knew of any such principles, it might have set them forth, and put up the best fight it could in their defence. The Post has adopted neither of these courses. In our issue of March 23, we printed from two of its leaders the exact words in which the paper summed up its ' reply' to Dr. Cleary's queries. In neither of these was there the faintest hint or trace —not so much as a breath or whisper —of a ( view of life' or of those principles of child-training

which Dr. Geary had pressed for and on which alone its position could be defended. Subsequent articles have not been one whit more enlightening; and on this crucial matter the Post has never got beyond the flat, feeble, irrelevant, and utterly evasive utterances to which we have referred. And now it has declared the controversy closed. The burden of proof rested throughout upon the Post, which had stood forth as the champion of the existing system. It had got itself into a difficulty; and the least that might reasonably have been expected from it was that it should fight its way out. Instead, it has escaped by the healthy but unheroic process of running away. On this point the vital issue of the whole controversy —the honors all rest with Dr. Geary.

Apart from its failure to face the main issues, and from the fact that its ' argument' on sundry other matters which it irrelevantly introduced consisted of a mere succession of unproved assertions, there are' other features of the discussion, as conducted on the Post's side, which those who have hitherto looked upon the Wellington paper as an honorable and reputable journal must find gravely disappointing. First, there is its culpable recklessness in the matter of quotations. Alleged quotations were given from Gladstone, Archbishop Temple, and others, which, in the mutilated form in which they appeared in the Post, seriously misrepresented the views of the authorities named. The Post had made no attempt to verify the citations given ; but had taken them at second-hand and perhaps at tenth-handfrom a crude and one-side 1 compilation included (as an appendix) m Professor Mackenzie's recent bitter and ultra-secularist pamphlet. The public have a right to expect—or rather to demand —better things from papers which set up to lead and mould public opinion on this great question. Then there is the everrecurring resort to the most bare-faced and contemptible quibbling. Here is a sample specimen. Dr. Geary had made the absolutely and literally truthful statement that religion had been banished, by Act of Parliament, from the school-training of children.' To which the Post replies: ' Religion has not been banished by the State from the school-training of children. The State declines either to teach religion itself or to subsidise the teaching of religion, but it has issued no edict against religion, and it has left every parent free to get such religious teaching for his child as he desires, and every sect free to administer it.' As applied to the working school hours of the State system this assertion is simply not true; and, consequently, as a reply to Dr. Geary's statement, it is the merest quibble. Finally, the Post has added to its other offences against the canons of honorable argument a disreputableand, wo are bound to add, deliberatemisrepresentation of Dr. Geary's position. Dr. Geary has conducted many newspaper controversies in his time; but we doubt if ever before, at the hands of a paper of the standing and reputation, of the Evening Post, ho has met with such gross and wilful distortion of his clearly-expressed views as that which has been perpetrated by the Wellington paper. We give what is, perhaps, the most glaring specimen. Referring to the State's admitted incompetency to teach religion the Post said: ' What many fierce Protestant critics have dubbed as State atheism is approved by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland.' And again, in the same connection, it said: 'The exclusion of religious teaching from the State schools is denounced by the Bible-in-schools Party as "godless," but this species of " godlessness" ; s approved by Dr.. Geary on a ground which we are glad to be able to share with him— that the State has no right to teach religion.' Dr. Geary does not approve of the State as a medium for conveying religious instruction to the children the Post represents him on that account as approving of 'State atheism ' and of 'the "godlessness" of the State school system' ! That is the logic of the kindergarten; or rather, it is not logic at all, but the veriest quibble—a quibble which Dr. Geary has thoroughly exposed in the letter reproduced in our last issue.

Altogether, the Wellington v paper comes out of the controversy, not only worsted in argument, but seriously damaged in reputation and prestige. The writer's persistent avoidance of the real issues, the persistent procession of unproved assertions when the burden of proof was upon him, and his persistent and shameless misrepresentation of the clearly-expressed views and arguments of his opponent for the evident purpose of side-tracking the discussion into a mere wrangle on irrelevancies, have all failed of their purpose. Thanks to Dr. Geary's rigid insistence on the issues, and nothing but the issues, the discussion is now right side up at last; and the Post's exhibition of helpless tactics has proved a grand and striking testimony to the unassailable strength of the Catholic position. Dr. Geary has promised further pronouncements and exposures of the Post's misrepresentations; and he may bo relied upon to keep his word.