DENOMINATIONAL GRANTS

New Zealand Tablet, 25 April 1918, Page 23

DENOMINATIONAL GRANTS

r.Last Saturday’s Evening Star came out with an editorial strongly urging those attending the householders’ {meetings on the-following Monday evening to enter protests against Government grants in the shape of scholarship allowances being extended to denominational schools. The article went on to say—“We therefore earnestly beg every individual and every public body that have to do with the administration of National Education to look carefully into this matter, and to urge upon the Government the necessity of taking steps to make it illegal for any Government grants to be made, directly or indirectly, to denominational schools. A resolution much in these terms should be passed without delay, and with practical unanimity, since the great mass of the community are agreed that the menace of denominational education shall not again rear its head in the land:

“ ‘This meeting of citizens protest most emphatically against the threatened introduction of the thin end of the denominational wedge into the domain of National Education by the payment of scholarship allowances, as well as tuition fees, to any schools other than those established under the Education Act, 1908, and its several amendments.’ ”

This suddenly manifested attitude of the Star was, in no unmeasured terms, commented upon in St. Joseph’s Cathedral on Sunday evening by the Very Rev. Father Coffey, Adm., who pursued the subject in the following letter, which appeared in Tuesday’s issue of the Star : “Sir, —I notice that in your Saturday’s issue you dropped your war articles for the purpose of starting a war of dissension and disunion in the community. I can quite well understand why you are against any consideration being given to the Christian schools in this country, but I cannot understand why Christian parents allow themselves to be dictated to by a few secularists and rationalists who frighten them by the scarecrow of denominationalism. Apparently the only place where all our boys can expect equal justice is on the plains of Flanders. Their life-blood may mingle with the life-blood of their neighbors and no one asks hat altar they worshipped at?’ or ‘What school they attended?’ There is no question asked where the prizes are to be used which are won there. In your excessive zeal to see that justice is meted out to all alike, why not. instead of wasting your valuable time in trying to prevent a few clever children from enjoying the prizes won in open competition, hold the bridge of justice like Horatius, and say that not one boy should pass to fight for a country which'denied him justice at home. “With a mock show of virtue you say that you have framed your resolution in the interests of the Labor associations and the workers of New Zealand, to whom this question is of vital importance,’ and you suggest that the granting of the right to take out scholarships in denominational schools is an injustice to the workers. If you have the interests of the workers so much at heart, why not go down -at the lunch hour to the shirt factories, and to the hat factories, and to the boot factories, and to the found and to the workshops of every description, and even to the offices, and call together the 95 per cent, of the boys and girls of the city, who are still of a school age, but who are now black and grimy with work, and say to them : The Government of the country have spent an average of between .£4O and £SO on the education of every one of you. The same Government are spending an average of £l2O on the education of the remaining 5 per cent, of your more fortunate and richer brothers and sisters who sat in the same seats with you in the primary schools, and who were no more remarkable for ability than you were, but who are now enjoying the “loaves and fishes” because their parents can afford .to do without their wages. Make no mistake, boy and girl workers. The Government are not spending this extra* amount on the more favored ones out of their own pockets. The Government are compelling you to

provide out of your hard earnings 'that extra 'money . Why not say that Why not say it in the interests of justice and fair play to the -workers ? You suggest that the parents who send their children to denominational schools can well afford to pay for their education. ; Such a suggestion only shows your ignorance of the subject you write about. If you desire to find the children of the well-to-do parents who can well afford to pay for the education of their children, don’t go to the denominational schools, but go to the public secondary schools. There you will find them. An inspector, of schools said to me on one occasion: ‘You will never humble a rich man’s pride by offering him • free - education for his children in New Zealand, even if it be had at the expense of the poor man.’ Find a man’s purse, and you are not far from his conscience. I agree with you when you say that ‘the road from the kindergarten’—German word suggestive of German methods‘to the university is free to all who have the ability, industry, and ambition to travel it to the end.’ This is the very thing your resolution is framed to prevent. Be more of a sport, and if boys or girls by their ability win a prize in a public examination, and have the ability, industry, and ambition to use it to the best advantage, don’t stand dog-in-the-manger like and say: ‘You must not use that prize in this way,’ ‘you must not use it in that way,’ ‘you must use it in my way only’a way which makes the children regret they won the prize. Surely the day is past when we could say to a child : ‘You may have this prize or you may have your conscience, .but you cannot have both prize and conscience.’ The Presbyterian Churchall honor to when it established education scholarships in connection with .the University did not stipulate, as it might have done, that only true Presbyterians could hold such scholarships.

“If the proprietary of the Evening Star, in a moment of repentance for having pocketed the excess war profits, established education scholarships, no one would question their right to stipulate • that their scholarships should be held in certain specified schools. I fail to see on what principle of justice a Government of a country who take money from denominationalist and undenominationalist alike to establish scholarships should turn round and say this scholarship must be taken out in one class of 'school and no other. It is like a firm giving a bonus to a faithful servant and then telling him you must spend that bonus with this firm and with no other. An Act of Parliament prevents in ordinary business what you so zealously' advocate in education. Give the clever child the prize, and give him the widest opportunity to use it to the best advantage to himself and to the State. The State has already taken sufficient precaution to see that these scholarships are used to the best advantage in stipulating that they must be taken out in schools approved by the Director of Education, which schools are annually examined by competent inspectors, “The spirit exhibited by you, evidently inspired from a higher source, in framing such a resolution and urging it on the householders’ meetings is reprehensible in the extreme. I own that I have been disappointed at the action of some of the meetings of householders ; the intelligence and spirit of fair play shown by some of the speakers does not give much hope for the progress of education in the country. At a time when all sections in the country are making common cause and offering a common, sacrifice to what you so often call justice and freedom you strive to snao from the hands of a child a prize which that child has" won in open competition with other children. Such conduct is a disgrace to our civilisation.—l am, etc., ‘ *

“James Coffey.

St. Joseph’s Cathedral, April 23.