Then and Now

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 17, 3 May 1923, Page 23

Then and Now

(By Very Rev. T. A. Gilbert S.M.)

SOME REFLECTIONS ON CATHOLIC EDUCATION.

The present generation of Catholics in New Zealand owes a deep debt of gratitude to the New Zealand Tablet and its founders and first promoters for the zeal and vigor with which the Tablet has combated the injustice of what is called the national system of education, and the courage and faith with which it has fought for the principle of religious training in schools. On this point the Tablet's policy has never changed since its first number was issued fifty years ago. By its fearless and outspoken words on the need of religious training, the Tablet has given untold strength and support to the views and wishes of the Catholic Hierarchy by its generous praise it has encouraged and heartened the Catholic laity to stand faithful to one of the most vital principles of Catholic discipline. The Tablet was only four years old when, in 1877, the present system of education was legalised— free, secular, and compulsory. Against the injustice of such a system Catholics began to make a tangible and abiding protest — the more eloquent because of the enormous sacrifices such a protest entailed on a numerically small and financially insignificant body. What was, forsooth, to crush “the struggling pangs of conscious truth” did in very deed but call forth a movement that has shown effectively how ridiculous is the claim of the N.Z. Education System to be called national and free. In conscious protest against the* secular system there arose rather there spread over the land a network of Catholic parochial schools; each school an act of faith in the value of the child’s immortal soul, and an act of loyalty as well to the highest good of the State. So vigorously and so quickly did the Catholics of nearly fifty years ago give evidence of the faith that was in them that Bishop Moran, speaking seven years after the passing of the Act of 1877, at the laying of the foundation stone of St. Patrick’s College (1884), could say with a just pride: —“After all, it is fortunate for us that we have been driven to provide Catholic schools for ourselves. The effort to destroy or weaken the influence of the Christian religion has only tended to strengthen its influence. No doubt the double tax, practically imposed on Catholics because they are conscientious, is a grievous injustice. Nevertheless they have reason to rejoice and exclaim; Felix inlust if in 4 0 happy injustice! that has spurred us on to make the sacrifices we have made in the cause of truly Christian schools.” That the spirit of those days is still active, he who will, may read. In 1921 there were in New Zealand 168 Catholic primary schools with a total roll call of nearly 20,000 children. In 'Wellington city and suburbs alone there are at least 16 parochial schools. Of our parochial schools Catholics may justly feel proud- — prouder perhaps than we arc —for, relatively, we are better provided with parochial schools than most other countries where conditions are more favorable than in our own. Apart from what the parochial school has done for the greater good of the State, it has, under God, been the means of keeping alive the Faith of our Fathers in the face of manifold opposition. But here it is well to take thought. The parochial school system was encouraged and fostered by the Hierarchy and the Catholic people because of an ever-present danger to the religious and moral well-being of the Catholic child. That danger was rightly sensed as lurking in the principle of negation on which the national system was built. In earlier years primary schools alone were free; but now the danger has become more extensive, for the whole State system is practically free from the infant room to the university. Forty years ago Catholics as a body were too much concerned with the physical struggle for life to afford the means of providing “High School” training for all their children. The few who did desire to prepare for a profession, went either to Europe or Australia until such time as colleges were established in New Zealand itself. But now higher education is no longer the privilege of the wealthy—the State opens the avenues'to higher studies for all who desire to learn. 1 With its free places and scholarships; and leaving certificates, the State gives the student of ordinary ability an opportunity to pass from

the primary to the secondary school and on through the university practically unembarrassed with financial worries. The result is that a door is opened wide not only for children from State primary schools but also for children from private schools to pursue a secondary course at a State school. The Government report on secondary education tells us that, of the 11,383 children who left the primary schools in 1920, having passed Standard VI., 7232 —or 64 per cent.—entered upon a course of secondary education. In 1921 there were in New' Zealand 13,821 children receiving free secondary education— number representing 91 per cent, of the pupils of all Government schools affording secondary education. How many of these children are Catholics and ex-pupils of Catholic primary schools ? It would certainly be interesting to know. Though statistics are not available to give us numerical accuracy, it certainly cannot be claimed that 64 per cent, of the children who left the Catholic primary schools in 1920 entered on a secondary course at a Catholic school or college. In fact the total number of children on the roll at the end of 1921 in all “Registered Private Secondary Schools” was 1634, of whom 535 only were boys! Without laboring the disparity that the last mentioned return reveals, it may not be amiss to ask what becomes of our Catholic children and particularly what becomes of our Catholic boys after they have finished their primary schooling. Certainly 64 per cent, do not take up higher studies at their own schools. Where then do they go? Unfortunately too many are compelled by a hard necessity to take any remunerative work that offers— for the average Catholic family is relatively large, and little ones must be fed and clothed. It is a pity that this necessity is so imperative, but it is not without its consolations. Some few—relatively few— to Catholic colleges; others—an ever increasing number—go to the Government secondary schools or colleges. +l Here is 1 food for reflection. We Catholics—rather our Catholic fathers— built up and maintained an efficient system of primary schools to save the faith of a rising generation. But a new and more subtle danger waylays the unthinking Catholic—here in New Zealand a far more formidable danger than in England for example, where the same facilities for free education do not exist. It may be an unpalatable admission but it is very near the truth to say that the Catholic parents who have set the fashion of sending their children to non-Catholic high and secondary schools or colleges are not as a rule wanting in worldly wealth; having much, they want more. If ‘ the Catholic colleges and secondary schools would take their children on the same terms as the Government schools, then they would not find it difficult to hold fast to principle. Perhaps too in some cases, the child—who has obtained his proficiency certificate at a Catholic parochial school, but is compelled to go to a Government secondary schoolis a victim sacrificed to the peace of the homea mere incident where father and mother are not of the same faith. But it is a fact that many of the Catholic children who ; are sent to non-Catholic schools are the victims of their parents’ vanity and faithlessness to principle— fiction of social caste is for there parents more real than the eternal verities of their Faith. What would the church and school builders of a generation ago say, had they lived to see their honored names transferred from the Catholic school roll to one where the Faith they loved and suffered for is unknown? But vanity is less amenable to reason than pride, which remains true even to a losing a lost cause “when honor’s at . the stake.” There is not a Catholic secondary school in New Zealand that would not take on itself the burden of giving “free” education to deserving Catholic boys rather than see them in mid-career virtually sell the principles on which their primary schooling has been based ; but they rightfully expect that those whom God has blessed with worldly means, should give them a just measure of practical- support in a task that is growing more difficult every year. However, we must face facts as they are. We, Catholics, are witnessing the threatened breakdown of a glorious and honored tradition. Too many of our children are leaving us in the most impressionable years of life, and “walk no more with us.” We can make our own the poet’s words;

“Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick on his coat — hound the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote.” Our fathers cared little for the handful of silver, for they were men schooled in sacrifice and blessed with faith. They did their noblest and best, hopeful that their children might emulate them when the occasion arose. But in spite of their noble endeavor, a free public school system based on negation—which the secular system is—must inevitably bring about some loosening of the hold the present generation has of the things of God. This negative or secular character of the system makes it a most potent force of disintegration—the more potent as it is the more insidious. Fifty years ago the hoisting of • the danger signal saved the soul of Catholic Faith in this country, and gave it a policy that is at once its pride and the text of its strength. That same danger is again threatening us on another sector; if we are to save ourselves and our heritage again we must act as our fathers did, and close up our ranks and stand firm, lest we become our own betrayers and the betrayers of those who will come after us. The number of Catholic children who frequent non-Catholic secondary schools is on the increase—why make great sacrifices to save the children during their tender years to lose hold of them during the formative period of youth ? Every parent, every school teacher knows that the trying period in a boy’s life are the years of adolescence —- the awkward years of transition from boyhood to manhood. Amid the storm and stress of the physical revolution incident to these years, the boy’s character is taking shape; his outlook on life is being focussed. His whole nature body, mind, and soul —must readjust itself to changing conditions. As he is then most susceptible of physical development, so, too, .his mind and soul are more receptive and more active in the pursuit of some satisfying ideal. A youth is not all impulse; his impulsiveness, his waywardness and thoughtlessness are only passing phasesthe meritable consequence of his aspiring mind. Beneath the moods and passing fancies move those “long long thoughts” of which the poet sings those deep-seated subconscious yearnings that often give us our surest intimations of immortality. Is it right for Catholic parents to commit to the care of non-Catholics the duty of shaping their child’s outlook on life? Is it just for them to so shirk a natural obligation as to leave it to strangers who have no sympathy with their child’s Faith? The moral dangers concomitants of adolescence —of themselves demand the most delicate and prudent care. Surely the teachers in our Catholic schools are the best qualified to stand in loco parentis on this ground alone! But apart from the unassailable advantage in this respect that a Catholic boy reaps from a Catholic school, there is the very important consideration that, whereas his religious life has been fostered and encouraged at the primary school, and his mind and soul thus best disposed to encounter the perils of youth itself, the change-over from a Catholic primary school means arrested growth to that religious life. The boy’s mind may develop intellectually, but his religious knowledge does not keep pace with his mental development on purely intellectual lines; his religious sense is not cultivated; what should be to him a gradual unfolding of the “Vision Splendid” becomes a drab dreary world. At best his parents may hope that his non-Catholic teachers will not interfere with the boy’s faith nor attack any of its teachings—in plain words the boy’s religious life ceases to develop, and as far as his school is concerned, religion at best becomes a mere negation. How is his religion to influence his life then? His purely secular knowledge will soon outrun his knowledge of the Faith and its mysteries, and very naturally these will come to be regarded as among “the things of a child” to be put away now that he has became a man! In a Catholic school the interest of the growing mind enjoys the constant stimulus of the truths of Faith, while at the same time “knowledge grows from more to more.” In Catholic schools at the very least a chartered course is mapped out for life; if the Grace of God then does its work, the evils of ignorance and indifference are reduced to a minimum.

At best the Catholic parent may hope that no positive attack be made on the child’s belief; but is that hope not almost a “temptation of God” in a country such as this? To undermine one’s faith, little positive teaching is needed —the essence of non-Catholicism is negation and protest. The strongest steel structure may crash through faulty weldingthe bravest oak will die from want of sap. Catholic Faith is a living flame — lamp that must be fed. More likely in New Zealand the Catholic child will hear much against the teaching of his Faithnot necessarily given consciously by the teacher to undermine it. But how is the ordinary teacher in 'a non-Catholic school to know —and in reason why should we expect him to careabout the Church’s teaching? He gives his own negative mostly as far as the truths of Faith are concerned, and except he be a man of wide reading and culture, what will he know of the great Catholic Church? Lucky for his pupil’s sensibilities if his teacher has not gathered his views of things Catholic from Hocking’s novels or some other equally reputable source! Not to touch on the wide field of religious and quasi religious and moral truths that must of necessity be met with in purely literary matters, how can a teacher possibly eliminate- his personal bias in such a controversial subject as history? The mere facts that go to make up knowledge are after all soon forgotten ; but the general impression remains. Can we reasonably hope that given a non—Catholic school the Catholic boy aa' ill take away an image of his Church as the Mother of Fair Love and Holy Hope instead of the image of her as the Woman of Babylon, mother of ignorance and superstition? It is the general image that will count in after life; as “A.E” remarks in the March number of Studies: “Modern psychology after long years of research and experiment has come to attach the utmost importance to the images of the mind. Once an image is implanted, an energy latent in the being operates through the image, as the earth gives energy to whatever seed may be flung in the clay. If these are images of health, the energy walks through the image and the body becomes as the mind. If these are images of despair, the body itself grows listless.” What then may we expect from a Catholic in whose mind has been planted a warped image of the Church? It is futile to assert that many excellent Catholics have to thank the State schools of New Zealand for their education. They would have got equal chances to develop their minds at Catholic schools, and would have in addition the chance of developing "heir spiritual life to the fullest. Worldly success is no index of what a religious and spiritual life areand most arguments of this kind are based on a confusion of the points at issue. Neither is it good logic to advance in justification the alleged superiority of non-Catholic schools. The superiority alleged has not been proven, and does not exist. Every man who abandons a cause must justify his action in the most plausible way —what easier way to do so than to blacken the cause he has betrayed? The Church’s legislation is not framed to meet the needs of one country only. She knows what has been done in older lands to stamp out the Christian belief; her enemies directed their attack on the schools, and AA r ere content to wait. Yet with full knowledge of the enormous difficulties that prevail everywhere for the maintenance of Christian schools the Church positively legislates that: “Catholic children must not attend non-Catholic schools. . . It is for the bishop of the diocese alone to determine in conformity with the instructions of the. Holy See, in what circumstances and with what safeguards against the danger of perversion, the frequentation of such schools may be tolerated ” (Canon 1374.) Here is a positive precept of the Church, and its wisdom no Catholic may gainsay. The Canon makes no distinction between primary and. secondary schools; it could not logically, for the danger is as great in the secondary as in the primary schools, and a cruel menace if the non-Catholic school be a boarding school. In his Lenten Pastoral for 1923 Cardinal Bourne deals with this very question. After dwelling on the first responsibility of parents to bring up their children in the knowledge and practice of the Catholic religion,. the Cardinal says;—“The second responsibility is the assigning to suitable teachers that part - of the. education of their children which they are unable, from want either of suitable

knowledge or of sufficient leisure, to impart themselves. And if, as we most certainly do, we regard religion as an essential part of the education of a Catholic boy or girl, it is obvious that no non-Catholic teacher, however high his moral character or extensive his knowledge, can ever really stand in loco parentis, where Catholic children are concerned. In other words, no Catholic can delegate to any non-Catholic his own personal parental responsibility in this matter of education. Similarly a non-Catholic is essentially incapable of accepting or receiving from a Catholic parent any delegation of this personal parental responsibility.” These are grave words —but they are based on principles that lie at the root of Catholic faith and philosophy. “In our country,” writes the Cardinal,” it would be idle to maintain that those who attend the publicly provided schools receive an education that is Christian.” The Times Educational Supplement found the Cardinal’s statement hard food for Midas; here in New Zealand even the press could not reasonably object if a similar statement were predicated of our publicly provided schools, for the law declares that the education to be provided shall be secular. However the Cardinal had solid grounds for his assertion. What Christianity means in the English Public Schools may be gathered from the pictures of public school life given us by Shane Leslie, Alec Waugh, and others. Even the writer of the article in the Times Educational Supplement is constrained to admit that “nineteenth century materialism” is the only explanation of the exclusion of religion from the curriculum of the secondary schools, and ' to the secondary schools of England he attributes a large part of the responsibility for the weakened Christian tradition to which the Cardinal refers in his Pastoral. How then in reason can we hop© for miracles in New Zealand where materialism is far more rampant and bigotry more obtrusive? What is a danger in England is a menace in New Zealand, for here secondary education is free. * What then is to be done? The first answer to that question is Canon 1374 quoted above. Catholics should not go to non-Catholic schools except and only when it cannot be avoided ; and then the obligation on the parent of safeguarding the faith of the child becomes doubly imperative. Such an important practical principle must not be thrust aside because of force viaj cure. In these difficult times the Church chooses to enunciate again her precept, and one answer to her call should be unswerving loyalty all along the line of educationprimary and secondary. We owe it to our fathers who saved the Faith for us; we owe it to ourselves; and we owe it to a younger generation, for we are only stewards of a noble trust, which belongs, in charity and justice, to those who will come after us. Discouragement, difficulties, even positive opposition, give no justification for the surrender of a principle so vital to our Catholic Faith. We have to admit that the number of Catholic secondary schools is not adequate to meet and check the existing danger; particularly is this true of secondary schools for boys. But that number will grow and multiply when we realise the risks we are running. As soon as the Catholic conscience is awakened to the nature of the danger we will have our high schools and colleges as relatively numerous as we have our primary schools. Until we are thus providedor another solution presents itselfsomething may be done to arrest the evil by the establishment of scholarships and free places. The existing secondary schools already make big sacrifices by way of boarding scholarships and free places. Experience has proved that when the views expressed in these lines are explained to the laity, they are anxious to help. In the cities, of course, it is easy comparatively to get free places established; blit what is needed at present is more in the nature of hoarding scholarships so that boys from smaller towns and country places may find it less difficult to get their secondary education at schools of their own. The work done in this regard by the Catholic Federation is deserving of more encouragement. .Not only should there be diocesan scholarships, but most of the parishes singly could maintain a scholar. In earlier times in other lands more was done in this regard, and here in New Zealand some parishes have

maintained scholars for many years, one parish known to the writer being responsible for as many as four. In this way local pride would act as a powerful- stimulus to Catholic secondary education, and give it that necessary practical backing from the whole Catholic body without which its permanent success in this country is' impossible. What is the use after all of Catholic primary school teachers spending their energy and giving their lives for children who are lost to the Church later through the indifference to principle of their parents? And many a Catholic teacher has been forced to see the work of years ruined when the pupils have left the sheltering influence of the Catholic schools. Even suppose the Catholic boy does not suffer any injury to faith or morals, and comes through unscathed, he has not his parents to thank for so exposing him to such a grave danger. It is probably the early influence of the Catholic teacher, plus a special grace of God, that has saved the brand from burning. But these isolated cases give no justification for such a flagrant breach of Catholic discipline. The same group of causes that brought into existence and justifies the Catholic primary schools demands that we Catholics realise the danger in our midst — otherwise we shall be a generation too late. To cheer us on to what sacrifices may be necessary we have good reason to take heart of grace Irom what we see around us. Many of our non-Catholic brethren have seen the wisdom of the Catholic policy, and have paid us the sincerest form of approval by imitating us. We will not for ever wander in the wilderness —support will come from unexpected quarters, and in spite of the most valiant defence made of the secular system, the people of New Zealand may yet he brought to re-adopt the only correct the Christian —view on the fundamental matter of religious education in schools. One last illustration; When the State has done its part, and the Catholic boy passes on to the University, the work of the Catholic secondary school may be supplemented by the Catholic Students’ Guild. The need of such a movement has long been felt, and the success that has attended it during the last two years is a most healthy sign of vigorous Catholic life in our midst. Rather remote from the Jubilee of the Tablet, someone may say; but ho; the Tablet has fearlessly spoken out in the cause of Catholic education for the last half-century; may it still be flourishing fifty years hence to chronicle in another Jubilee number that the danger which threatens us to-day was met as bravely, as fearlessly, and as successfully as that which Catholics faced fifty years ago, and in the combating of which the Tablet stood forth as the noble champion of Catholic Faith.

Ad Multos Annas.