Answers to Correspondents

New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1922, Page 21

Answers to Correspondents

Fair Play.—We cannot publish anonymous letters on the subject, but we agree with you that the Dunedin State school teachers are a pretty despicable lot of men. Perhaps a team from one of our Catholic girls' schools would challenge the boys of the State schools, with the teachers of the latter thrown in. It is clear that they cannot beat our boys. The Rugby Union, which invited the boys to come in and then had not tho honor to stand by them, is unfit to control a game of ''*twoup." C.O.R.Beyond taking an Irishman's interest in sport we cannot say we are authorities on the matter, but we certainly think that instead of cutting down the fences for steeplechases it would be far better to try to breed "leppers." The present policy of trying to convert broken-down flat racers into jumpers is hopeless. There has been only one first-class steeplechaser in the Dominion for the past six years. F.L. — suggestion you make is excellent. There are many of our people well enough versed in history to enable them to go steadily through the class-books supplied by Mr. Parr's Board and to ppint out one by one the lies that are given the children in lieu of history. Protestant literature was the name given even by parsons to a book which, according to the late Mr. Fraser, only a blackguard would introduce into a home. Protestant fiction would be a very good name for some of the efforts at history imposed on pupils. R.O. — man who becomes a Freemason takes a binding oath, and if he becomes a Catholic he must cease, to be a Freemason, but he must respect his oath, or rather forget all about the secrets he learned by virtue of it. The principle is the same as one to which we referred previously. The knowledge acquired is secretum commissum, that is, a secret communicated on the undertaking that it will never be revealed. Knowledge acquired by professional men is of the same order. A doctor ought not to reveal a secret thus learned. It is for the common good that such confidences should be protected by the Natural Law, and the law of the land ought also Tespect them.