The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1913. RECALCITRANT EDUCATION BOARDS

New Zealand Tablet, 13 February 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1913. RECALCITRANT EDUCATION BOARDS

T has been our unpleasant duty during the */u||ft of the Education Boards in our larger *jyO education districts have in set terms, and in the face of an entirely adequate and &t&2& weighty presentment of the case for the claim advanced, refused to comply with the * Catholic request for the recognition of certain admittedly efficient Catholic colleges as ' equivalent' to a secondary school for the tenure of State scholarships. The Wellington Board, having before it the application from St. Patrick's. College to be so recognisedconsideration of which had been adjourned from a previous meeting—adopted a. longwinded, question-begging motion on the subject, and declined the application. Members would not even

trouble to visit the institution, as invited by the authorities, before coming to a decision—their minds were evidently already made up. The Auckland Education Board, which had already refused a request to recognise the Sacred Heart College, Ponsonby, was again approached by Bishop Geary, who submitted an unanswerable array of facts and arguments in support of the demand. The Board ' received' Dr. Geary's letter, but declined the application. * The grounds alleged by the' Wellington Board for the refusal of the St. Patrick's College application were ' That, as this Education Board is administering a State system of education, and as free places and scholarships awarded in this education district are now tenable in two Wellington colleges, one for boys and one for girls, and in a Technical School and District High Schools, wholly or in part built and largely maintained by the State, this Education Board would not be justified in allowing scholarship holders to attend private colleges.' This is a considerable modification of the motion as it was originally framed; and it is at least a curious coincidence that the features omitted in the amended version are the points which were commented on by us in our issue of December 12. Boiled down, the resolution amounts merely to the assertion that as the education system is a ' State system' the Board ' would not be justified ' in granting the application. To begin with, the assertion that the education system administered by the Board is exclusively a State system—in the. sense that it takes no cognizance of private or denominational schoolsis simply not true. In every education district in the Dominion, Catholic primary schools are examined by the State inspectors; and the Wellington Education Board itself pays every year a substantial sum for this very practical recognition of private schools by the alleged exclusively 'State system.' Again, the Education Amendment Act of 1910 provided, amongst other things, that ' all scholarships heretofore or hereafter established by the Board (i.e., by Education Boards) shall be open to all school children of school age ' —thus giving practical recognition to, and bringing within the scope of the general education system, every private primary school in the Dominion. When an Education Board allows a boy to win his scholarship from a Catholic (and therefore non-State) primary school, and actually awards him the money, it cannot with any pretence to logic, refuse to allow him to take it out at. a particular college on the ground that it is administering a ' State system ' of education. Other valid ground of refusal there might be; but that particular point of objection is clearly barred. Finally, the Education Act itself clearly recognises secondary schools which are not maintained or subsidised by the State. In Section 67, Sub-section 2, and in Section 72, Sub-section g, it is provided that State scholarships may be taken out at a (State) secondary school or ' its equivalent'; and in July of last year the Minister of Education, on the authority of the Solicitor-General, officially declared that the words ' its equivalent' meant educationally equivalent, and unmistakably embraced and applied to Catholic secondary schools. * The excuse put forward by the Wellington Board is, therefore, a mere evasion and begging of the question. The point at issue is not the merely abstract general question as to whether our education system is or is not an exclusively State system. As we have shown, the answer to that question—giving to the question the only meaning in which it can have any practical bearing on the present situation-is that the State does take cognizance of private schools; and in no less than three different Acts of Parliament are the private schools given a measure of legal recognition, and brought, to a greater or less degree, within the purview of the State system. Whatever our education system is calledwhether it be described as a purely State system, or, more correctly, as a State system recognising private educational institutions—it is, it is governed absolutely by existing statutes. Existing legislation says that State scholarships are to be tenable at a (State) secondary school or ' its

equivalent approved by the board.' It would be absurd to suppose that Parliament, when putting this expression into/ the Act, meant that no Board ever should recognise an ' equivalent'; and'the one, definite, specific issue before the Wellington Board, or any other Board to whom application is made under this Clause, is to settle whether the applying institution is adequately equipped - and educationally efficient for scholarship purposes. To say, as the Wellington Board does, that because the education system is ' a State system' the application is not to be granted, is not to administer the Act but to supersede it, and virtually to repeal it. It is taking away with the left hand what has been given with the right; and in effect renders the Act entirely nugatory. The one legitimate ground for withholding ' approval' would be the absence of reasonable evidence that the applying institution was up to the required standard of educational efficiency. Neither as regards St. Patrick's or the Sacred Heart College could this excuse be successfully advanced; and in neither case was there the slightest attempt to make any such suggestion. Prom the elaborate references in the Wellington motion to the various State Colleges and District High Schools in that city, it would seem clear that in that case, at least, the motive underlying the refusal was jealousy of the Catholic institution and a narrow-minded unwillingness to see it reap ever so small or indirect a benefit. * In-view of the meaning and intention of the Act—as officially interpreted by the Minister of Education and of the different treatment accorded to such avowedly denominational institutions as Christ's College and Wanganui College, it is hardly surprising to find even ' a strict covenanting Presbyterian ' declaring in the N.Z. Times— the Times itself devoting a leader to showing—that in the districts represented by these recalcitrant Boards Catholics are not getting a fair deal. The question which now immediately concerns us is to find a remedy for the injustice which has been perpetrated. The only permanent remedy is to agitate until an amendment of the Act is brought down making it compulsory on s the Education Boards to grant the application for scholarship recognition of all private secondary schools which satisfy the Government requirements as to secular efficiency. As the Act stands, the concession may never be granted over wide areas of New Zealand; and even where it is granted it is of uncertain tenure. At any time, a breath of popular excitement, or the return of a bigoted majority on any of the Boards, may lead to its withdrawal; and we can only call the gift securely our own when it is firmly and permanently embodied in our Statute-Book. In the meantime something might be done to teach the smallminded individuals who have taken so narrow a view of their duties and responsibilities a lesson. As Bishop Grimes put it, in his timely and out-spoken protest at the Lower Hutt: 'The remedy is in your own hands. Turn them out, and put in their places fair-minded men, who will rise above narrow-minded bigotry or foolish jealousy.' Members of the Boards, as everybody knows, are elected by the school committees, each member of committee having one vote. The school, committee elections take place on the fourth Monday in April. Every householder in a school district is qualified to vote; and Catholic householders in the districts affected are not doing their duty to themselves, to their children, or to the Catholic colleges which are doing such splendid work, if they do not make their influence felt.