CATHOLICS AND EDUCATION.

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1919, Page 13

CATHOLICS AND EDUCATION.

To the Editor. ” * I Sir, —In the last issue of the Tablet a Parliamentary candidate advertises the same old shibboleth about “free, secular, and compulsory education.” ' Is he really in favor of free education, or is ■ his education to be free only to those who believe that the good God and all His works should be “warned off” the school premises, or is to be free to all, to the abovementioned as well as to those who believe that religion is* an absolutely indispensable factor in education? - ' S At a political meeting at Hastings somebody asked the question: “Are you in favor of grants to denominational schools?” I don’t like the form of that question. The word “grant” seems to me to convey the idea„of “bonus”’ “gratuity,” some kind of favor,. something that fwe are not actually entitled to. The word “denominational” is misleading. " As his Lordship Bishop Cleary has shown in his masterly work, God or No God id the Schools,*'' the secular schools are denominational schools, just as much as are the Catholic or Protestant schools. Permit mo to suggest that the question be put thus: “Are you in favor of the Government replacing the present sectarian system of education (in which only one section or denomination, the secularists, is provided for at the expense of all) by a national system such as obtains in England, Scotland, Canada, and other parts of the Empire—a system in which each section of the community, Catholic, Protestant, or secular, will have spent on its schools the money that each contributes through taxation for that purpose?” Or more shortly; “Are you in favor of the Government abolishing religious persecution by spending on Catholic children, and not on others, the money that Catholics contribute through taxation for the education of their children?” The Catholics in the other parts of the Em—particularlyv Scotland —have, obtained their rights. Why can’t we do the same? —I am, etc., T. P. Robinson. Napier.