RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

New Zealand Tablet, 19 February 1914, Page 31

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

INTERVIEW WITH ARCHBISHOP O’SHEA. While in Christchurch, his Grace Archbishop O’Shea was interviewed by a representative of the Lyttelton Times, and expressed the following views on the education' question : As regards religious education, he said, the Catholic Church had made great sacrifices to supply this want to the members of its Church. He was. not opposed to a national system of religious education, which ho thought would be satisfactory to all sections of the community, whether Catholics, Protestants, or others. He would like to see such a system working. The pie sent system of education was not a national one in .that it did not satisfy every section of the people. At present there was evidence that the Bible-in-schools movement would not satisfy everybody. Catholics, and even a large number of people outside the Church, would not have their requirements met. Such a proposal, while satisfactory to one section, would inflict a further injustice upon Catholics and agnostics in the public schools.* ' The Archbishop said that he had met a large number of fair-minded people, who were not Catholics and who believed that the only means of religious education was by way of a national system. In countries such as England, Germany, and Belgium, whose people always took a lead in many things, there were national systems of education which were entirely satisfactory to every section of the people. This system simply provided schools for each religious sect— Catholic schools for Catholics, Protestant schools for Protestants, and in districts where there was a mixed population mixed schools were provided. In Germany, for instance, this worked particularly well, for in that country there were Catholic districts and Protestant districts. If the. people would meet in a conciliatory spirit, he went on, he was sure, that a satisfactory solution of the present unrest as far as educational matters are concerned, could be devised, whereby everybody would gain. ... : To his mind, it would be a mark of true statesmanship if some of the political leaders in the Dominion were to take the subject up and bring about such a system. If all, under this system, were treated alike, it would bring as a result a good feeling amongst the whole of the community. Another' important factor in education, the Archbishop said, was to educate the young people to be worthy citizens. No education could be a correct one which had regards only for the intellectual being. To be a complete system, it must train the moral faculties as well, and only in that way could the young people be trained to be good men and women. In that way, too, a national spirit would be built up, and ■in his opinion the people of the Dominion could not have this national spirit without religion being taught in the schools. y