GOD OR NO-GOD IN THE SCHOOLS?*

New Zealand Tablet, 10 August 1911, Page 1505

GOD OR NO-GOD IN THE SCHOOLS?*

By The Rt. Rev. Henry W. Clbary, D.D.

- ♦ , THE DISCUSSION : A CRITICAL SUMMARY

PART 111. THOSE THAT FLY MAY FIGHT AGAIN.' lI.—THE « EVENING POST'S >. DEFENCE 'OF THE SECULAR SYSTEM (Continued from last issue.) In 1877 a party-political majority:" in ; the New Zealand. Parliament found a school-creed, selected a school-theory. Creed and theory were 'as fastidious and as firm as theology,' as dogmatic as Mohammedanism/ as sectarian as agnosticism. The creed-theory was the purely secular school-system, devised by Robespierre, and the Revolutionary Convention (on the principles of Rousseau) for the purpose of emptying every trace of Christian belief out of the hearts of the rising generation in France; it is the same legally secular scheme by which French atheists of our own day avowedly aim at the destruction of all faith in revealed religion. Our secular system is compounded of dogmas. Whether its authors and defenders like it or no, whether they, admit it or no, > the whole scheme is necessarily based on dogmas— even on dogmas concerning religion; that is, on religious dogmas. Some few of these dogmas are set forth on pp. 11, 41. These the Evening Post has not dared to face by any effort at refutation. There they are, as clear as if they were printed, in letters a foot high, over the walls, ceilings, roofs, and floors of every public school. Moreover, the- ethical or moral teaching supposed to be imparted to children in those schools is dogma, dogma, dogma, through and through. And without dogma "and dogmatic .affirmation, there can be no teaching even of this thin ethical ' skilly' the unsatisfying substitute which our State-creed offers to Christ's loved ' little ones' for the nourishing milk and the sound meat of Gospel truth and Gospel principles of morality which it has driven out of their • olden place in the schools. In every'such 'ethical' or 'moral' lesson, the teacher he is to teach at all —must be dogmatic. Every assertion of moral obligation to do this or to avoid that, is thereby an assertion (or dogma) that there is an essential moral difference between right and wrong, good and bad, actions; that we have the free will or the power of choosing between right and wrong, good and bad; that there lies upon us a duty or obligation of doing the right and avoiding the wrong. Moreover, the idea of obligation or duty brings \us back finally to a right, and no obligation or duty can I be admitted until right has been proved. But the notion of right is essentially bound up with some person who possesses that right—viz., of imposing his will upon ours. Hence any theory which fails to indicate 1 some person possessing such a right fails to provide a solid basis for moral duty or obligation. . . An imperious command can only proceed legitimately from a person speaking in his own \ name, and imposing his own Will on us by inherent riyht. Therefore the voice of conscience, which does speak in this imperious tone, can only have validity if conscience is the medium by which some such person outside ourselves expresses his commands, and thus makes his will known to us.' Now this Person, Whose will is the basis of the moral order and of moral obligation, is God ; and ' conscience /is a reflection of the ethical character of the Supreme A 'Being, and the vehicle through which He conveys to us His commands.' Under our purely secular system, it is illegal for the teacher to base duty or moral obligation on this; its true and only solid foundation. But he is, apparently, free to dogmatise \ (implicitly or explicitly) along the lines of reducing school-taught.

morality to 1- ‘ secular ’ 2 (that is, ‘ worldly ’ . and unspiritual ’) motives— as (for instance) expediency, self-interest, the fear of the policeman,- passion, sentiment, policy, or feeling. These, .in their first or last 1 analysis, are the bases of morality preached by such sects as the Utilitarians, the Positivists, the Humanitarians, the Kantians, and so on. Their purely ‘ secular ’ or this-worldly leases of ethics may, apparently, be legally suggested dr. pressed home in the public school; but, under our ‘neutral’ system, it is clearly illegal to do so in regard to the spiritual and supernatural foundations of moral obligation that are known to Christians, and, generally, to those who believe in God and in the revelation of His will to mankind. But whatever the teacher affirms or denies in the matter of ethics, such affirmation or denial is a dogma. You can no more teach ethics (or religion) in the abstract than you can teach reading or history or plumbing or the making of apple-dumplings in the abstract. You must be dogmatic—or cease to teach. There is no working alternative. Nor can there be any such thing as the ‘ undogmatic Christianity,’ the ‘unsectarian teaching,’ that journalists, and even some clergymen, at times talk or write about. It has no more actual or possible existence than a circle without a centre or a bright-white that is a dead-black. At the meeting already referred to above, Mr. Balfour well remarked: ‘ Surely the Archbishop of Canterbury is right in saying that the idea of trying to meet the religious needs of the country by setting to -work to devise what is called “non-dogmatic theology” is really the wildest dream imaginable.’ When (as in New Zealand) Parliament throws one religion v out by the window, another will-come in by the door. In his pamphlet, Socialism in the Schools, the Hon. Bird S. Color (non-Catholic) says, in this connection i ‘lt is true in psychology, as it is in physics, that nature abhors a vacuum. The old religion is being excluded, but a new religion is rushing in to take its place. It is variously called. By some it is known as Agnosticism, by some Atheism, by some Socialism.’ •It is (adds he) based on a theory of material civilisation from which God is excluded, and it is affirmative, dogmatic, and intolerant, ‘ The teacher in our public schools,’ adds he, ‘ may deal with the faith of the Egyptians, with the Olympian deities of the Greeks, with the Manitou of the Indians, but Christmas is taboo, Easter is a subject prohibited. No one believes there ever was a Mercury with wings on his heels, but that may be taught in the schools. Everyone knows that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, but that must not be mentioned.’ The whole pamphlet is a pathetic appeal by an earnest Protestant who loves his country, and a warning of the disastrous consequences the spreading atheism or irreligionwhich must arise from this substitution of un-Christian or anti-Christian dogma for Christian teaching and practice in the- schools. One who was no friend of the Catholic' faith-Jules Simondeclared that ignoring God in public instruction is equivalent to denying Him. But our laws goand go on a dogmatic basis—much further than mere ignoring. ■ They shut out, eject, exclude God from the schools. And even though (as in New Zealand) this has not been done from any conscious hostility to religion, we cannot ignore the implications of our law, the lessons of Continental Europe, the development, of the rationalistic attack among us, and 1 the easy and legal and logical transition from negative to positive atheism or irreligion. And finally: (a) The New Zealand Education Act nowhere says that our system of public instruction shall he ‘ undogmatic(The / undogmatic ’ theory is merely an inference of the supporters of the secular system, and has no warrant in law or fact.) (b) The New Zealand law merely provides that the teaching in the. public schools shall be ‘ entirely secular’ that is, that it shall * entirely ’ relate to things ‘ pertaining to the present world,’ and ‘ to the present life only,’ and-that ’it shall entirely.’ exclude ‘things spiritual, or sacred, things connected with ‘ religion and religious teaching,’" things associated .with the ‘future life’ and ‘eternal interests.’ - , .

(c) It would, therefore, appear to he no violation of the t letter of the law to impart to pupils any dogmatic view of life-of its origin, duties, and destiny—provided only (a) That such dogmatic view of life shall ‘ entirely ’ exclude the spiritual and supernatural; and (b) that it shall not transcend the powers of matter, and shall limit itself to the interests, of the present world only. In other words, in the letter of the law in New Zealand (as in France) there is apparently nothing whatsoever to prevent or penalise the teaching of Utilitarianism, Positivism, Hedonism, any kind of hard Materialism, or any other ism,’ which entirely excludes things spiritual and sacred,’ and limits itself ‘ entirely ’... to this material world and to . ‘ the present life only.’ ... Happily, the state of public feeling makes such.teaching, at present, not good policy in New Zealand - Put when our schools-without-God have been doing their work for another, generation, it may be practicable . for those then ‘so disposed,’ to ‘play an open game.’ And when the time comes, the letter of the law will - no more stand in the way in New-Zea-land than- it has stood in less conservative Prance, • ? 4, ‘Undenominational.’ ? 4. The Evening Post furthermore asserts .that the utter exclusion of religion from its olden place, in the schools, renders these schools ‘undenominational/ and rescues them from the ogre of ‘ denominationalism ’ (March 9). y Reply: (a) This assertion (like Nos. 2 and 3) is not a statement of a Christian view of life, and of its duties and destiny. Much less is it a justification, on a Christian view of life, of that secular school system which atheists and other unbelievers defend on an ■anti-Christian view of life. This assertion of ‘ denominationalism ’ is, therefore, irrelevant to the present phase of this discussion. (b) Once more, the Post’s : assertion assumes—what it ought to prove—that the State has, on Christian principles, % moral ■ right to drive religion from. the prescriptive place which, from immemorial ages, it has occupied in the schools. (c) The terms ‘ denominational ’ and ‘ undenominational ’ are among t he shibboleths and catch- - words that pass for ‘ argument ’ with practically all of the journalistic and political supporters of the godless system of public instruction. This sort of ‘ argument’ is based upon a misconception of the meaning of the word ‘denomination’ and ‘denominational.’- Lord Brabourne (better known in the British political and literary world as Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) pinked with gentle raillery this fallacy of ‘ denominationalism’ in a pamphlet published in London in 1872. ‘Now,’ -wrote he, ‘ do not let us' be frightened at that word. I have often noticed that when people in this country want to get up a cry against something or other, they give it a long name. It is astonishing how far a long name goes with some people. ‘ I have known measures condemned before they were half ; understood, because grandiloquent orators had declared that they were akin r to “centralisation,” which is a terrible word and denominational ” is another instance of the same kind of thing. But “ denomination,” as you very well know, is only a longer word, meaning the same thing as “name” or “title” A denominational school is, therefore, only a school called by a particular name, or a school founded by people who are called by a particular name; therefore, a secularist school, "from which religion is excluded, is just as much a denominational school as any other; and the more correct name for other schools would be “ anti-secularist ” or “ reli-gious-teaching schools.’ The substance of this quotation appears on page 13 of the Pastoral Letter over which the present discussion arose. The livening Post has not so much as mentioned, much less ‘ refuted,’ this argument of Lord Brabourne. (d) The denominational and sectarian character of our purely secular school system is further emphasised by the series of religious dogmas which are necessarily involved and implied in that system. (e) Here is an allied assertion of the Evening Post of February 25: that to Catholic children, the secular schools are at present open on the terms of perfect equality.’ But (1) what is the evi-

dence of this perfect equality ’? None has, thus.far, been advanced. (2) How is this (unproven) ‘perfect equality ’ to be reconciled with the unanswered facts and* arguments that 'appear on. pp. 11, 12, 41". (3) v We all know that the utter exclusion of religion, by law, from the schools, suits directly and exactly the view of the atheists and other unbelievers who hold

that there is no God to worship, no undying soul to save, and. no future life to train • children for. To demonstrate its unproven assertion of ‘perfect equality/ the Post must show that the exclusion of religion from the schools suits just as directly and, exactly the view of life of Catholics and others who believe in God, in an immortal soul, in moral responsibility to God, and in a future life of rewards and punishments, for which school education is (to them) a partial but most important preparation. This ‘ugly proposition the Post has avoided as if it were the cholera morbus. (4) The godless schools are ‘ open ’ to Catholic children. So are rationalists’ and free thinkers’ conventicles. But there is this important difference: Catholics are not compelled— under penalty of distress or imprisonment —to pay taxes for the endowment of either the explicit or even the implied dogmas taught in these conventicles. Alt this has been urged, in various forms, during the present discussion. And it has not been set aside. The reader is also referred to the other remarks on the ‘ neutrality ’ fallacy given above.

111. ' Taxation ' Fallacy. - '_,-J, Jl In its issue of February 25, '■ the Evening Post devoted a leading article to the Pastoral Letter-that appears at the beginning of this publication. The Post there quoted my words: 'We (Catholics), at least, require neither State patronage nor State pay for our religious dogmas.' The Post, moreover, accepted this quoted statement as the text on which to hang its criticisms. Later on, under the stress of discussion, it rose to higher temperatures, and, in its issue of March 22, began those grave misrepresentations of my' plain words which form ' so regrettable a feature of its controversial methods. From March 22 onwards, it steadily referred to the union of religion with Stateaided secular instruction as ' a" policy of -religious endowment,' ' to subsidise religious teaching,' to 'support it. with rates and taxes,' and so on.

Reply*, (a) On and after its ■' break of March 22, the .Post's repeated statements, in this connection, could have had no other effect but to convey to its readers this idea: that the thing its Catholic opponent demands is an 'endowment,' a ' subsidy,' rates and taxes,'• for the support of religious teaching in the schools, (b) From its very first article, the Post well knew that such an idea was entirely groundless,. and contrary to the plain and emphatic words of the Pastoral Letter besides being contrary to the notorious facts of 'the Catholic, demand, which are well known to every wideawake pressman in New Zealand. In all the circumstances of the case, the Post might properly be expected to have taken , especial care to avoid. reasonable risks of misunderstanding, or of the conveying of misleading impressions, in this connection, (c) All this talk about 'endowments,' 'subsidies,' etc., comes.with none, too good a grace from the. Christian champion of a system that is built up and financed upon the series of implied sectarian dogmas that are set forth in part on pp. 11,41. (d) But what if the re-union of religion with education necessarily meant (as it certainly does not) the public subsidising of religious instruction ? - How would this circumstance justify—on a Christian view of life, and of its duties and destiny—that self-same secular system which atheists and other unbelievers defend on a view of life that is anti-Christian? That is the radical problem to which we always get back. The ' taxation ' fallacy is not even a statement of a ' philosophy ' or view of life. And on a view of life this whole discussion pivots. (To be continued.)