The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1919. THE CHRISTCHURCH BAZAAR

New Zealand Tablet, 11 September 1919, Page 25

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1919. THE CHRISTCHURCH BAZAAR

||P§7p HOETLY before going to press last week we vxjgv received the news of the magnificent result JuYjSVm of the Christchurch bazaar which we published in our last issue. The fact that the sum realised amounted to over £6400 is in *kself noteworthy, constituting, we believe, a record for Catholic bazaars held in the Dominion. But it is on the fact that the object of the bazaar was to provide Catholic schools for the girls of Christchurch we are moved to dwell at present. The meaning of the figures published is plainly that the Catholic people of Christchurch, and the visitors who helped them last month, are so impressed with the importance of securing for the children a sound religious and moral education, on a basis of Catholic dogmatic teaching, that they -came forward and laid down the enormous sum of £6400 in testimony of the faith that is in them. . No more eloquent tribute to .the worth of Catholic education could be desired ; no more forcible reply to the attacks made in recent times on our schools and on our teachers. * Catholic principles lay down clearly that the Church a fid the parents have rights and duties higher and more sacred than those of the State. The radical fallacy at the bottom of modern State idolatry is that the State is supreme and that it has the right to intrude into individual and family concerns and even to regulate them in all things. The individual and the family are before the State and are responsible to God for . the. use of the rights and for the fulfilment of the duties which come directly from Him alone. With these the State may not interfere, and cannot pretend to interfere without violation of liberty and justice founded on the law of God and the law of Nature. The Church has the divinely-given right to see that her children are educated as Christians, and that no injury is done to , their faith and morals. Parents are bound to procure for their children, an education which will help them not only to become good citizens, but also to save their immortal souls. .The State has ho authority to-usurp such natural and divine rights, and consequently may - neither : dictate to parents. in matters

of conscience nor * compel them to ? send ' children to schools which make no provision -for the religious training of ■;. the young. To•' do so, , whether directly or indirectly—as is done in New Zealand— an act of unwarrantable despotism against " which the whole community ought to protest. The other day the secretary of the N.Z. Educational Institute wrote a letter to a (Wellington paper, n professing that children attending private schools are still the children of the State, and that the State is responsible for them. . He protested that the Institute did not contend that private schools had no right to exist, while at the same time admitting that he and his fellows stood for such restrictions and hindrances as amount to a boycott of private schools by the State. The State has no right to boycott private schools, especially such as are even in secular matters the equals if not the superiors of public schools, and in forcing parents who object to send children to State schools to pay taxes for education, not a penny of which is expended on the sort of education the parents demand, the State is guilty of an injustice and an act of tyranny. In a very limited sense the children may be said to belong to the State, but in a very real and intimate sense they belong to God and to their parents. Their first end in existence, is not. to become food for powder or merely efficient money-makers. They were not begotten by the State, and it has nothing to do with their immortal souls, which matter most to them. Hence, for parents who are imbued with sound Christian principles, the education offered by the State will not suffice: such parents know their duty to God and to their children, and are not likely to ask either the secretary of the Institute or his colleagues to teach it to them. They know that a religious education, based on dogmatic teaching, is the only education worthy of the name; they know that secular schools are undermining the foundations of society and making for antiChristian and. anarchical doctrines wherever they flourish. Consequently, like true men and women, they are ready to make any sacrifices and to endure even such injustice as they suffer in this country rather than jeopardise tile character of the children here and their salvation hereafter.

France has testified to the result of excluding religion from schools. Germany found it out too late. The day will come when the voice of conscientious men and women in New Zealand will be too powerful for even our placemen to remain deaf to it. There is a growing determination in other Churches than ours to provide suitable schools for the young, and to see to it that the future citizens of the Dominion go out into the world fortified against temptations which nothing but the fear and love of God can help them to overcome. We welcome this movement on the part of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, and we feel sure that the opposition manifest to it in certain quarters is a sure sign of its success. It is a crying shame that the Jews and Atheists who have no Christian principles should be permitted to foist on New Zealand a system of education which is against the principles of all Catholics and of numerous members of other Churches and that such a state of things is tolerated is yet another proof of the apathy and indifference with which people here view the repeated encroachments of an incompetent Government on their rights and liberties. Whatever other Churches may do there can be no doubt of what Catholics will do :as in the past, so in the days' to come, they will see to it, at no matter what cost, that their children shall have a chance of being good Christians and that they shall not become corrupted by the Materialism and the irreligion which already have eaten into the heart of this young country. The Christchurch bazaar is a remarkable and a splendid testimony to the spirit of the Catholics of Christchurch. Besides being a consolation and a source of joy to the promoters, it is a shining example to the Catholics of every other part of the Dominion.' To the Bishop,, the clergy, and the people of Christchurch the credit and the triumph; to us all the satisfaction that our brethren . have; rendered so striking witness to the Faith of I their Father^. : •■■■' * -"..',,,.*•>