WHY CATHOLICS BUILD SCHOOLS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 43, 15 October 1924, Page 33

WHY CATHOLICS BUILD SCHOOLS

THE BISHOP OP BATHURST ON EDUCATION PROBLEMS. An admirable statement of the Catholic position in regard to education problems was made by his Lordship the Bishop of Bathurst (Right Rev. Dr. O'Farrell, CM.), on the occasion of the solemn opening of a new convent at Orange, N.S.W. In the course of an interesting address, Bishop O'Farrell said: "There are many people who cannot understand why we spend so much on building schools and supporting them, and why Ave don't take advantage of the public school system, which would save us all this expense. The answer is simply that we believe religion is an essential part of a child's training, and to subordinate religion to other things and to put it in a backward place, as is done i-u the public school system, is the most certain way of destroying all respect for religion in the mind of the child. There are others who think our claims are untenable, because Ave are looking for endowment of religion. Some of these people are in good faith. They look upon the education of the young as a mere secular matter altogether, and they cannot understand what religion has to do with it. There are others who are satisfied with the provision made in the public school system to ladle out religion for an hour a week, giving the children the idea that religion is only a secondary matter, and which, in after life, has its consequences in religious indifference and empty churches. There are others who think we are at war with the public school system, which we would abolish, root and branch, if we could, and that we would force all others to think as we do. Defective Machinery. "It is true that we regard the principle regarding religion in the public school system as wrong, namely, that it almost entirely eliminates from the mind of the child what, after ail, is the most important of all knowledge, the knowledge of its faith. It is true, we regard the system as a defective machine, a lop-sided, truncated system, a compromise between those who care for no religion, and those whose ideas of it may be reduced to a common denominator. But it is not time that we censure those who work this system. The public school teachers are an excellent and conscientious body of men and women, doing a great and responsible work, of whom I have never said anything but words of praise. But I contend that with the best will in the world they cannot produce a well-finished article with the machinery at their disposal. (Applause.) "Let us not he misunderstood. We want no change in the present system. If it suits the great majority of our fellow-citizens, let them have it. If it suits in its religious aspect the religious views of the majority of our citizens, as the Minister for Education seems to think it does, by all means let them have it. Nor do we ask for State aid for religion. We don't want a penny of the general taxes for religion. But what we do ask, as a matter of simple justice, is for an amendment of the Act, such an amendment as will give our teachers a just reward for the secular work they do in their schools. If the secular work of our teachers and schools does not come to the standard that the State expects from the public schools, we expect no help. Just Reward for Secular Work. "But if our teachers reach this standard, why should not the laborer get his due? Why is it that because our teachers give our children in their daily life the extra help of their religion that the State penalises them for doing so? Does it matter to an employer if his workman says his prayers from time to time at his work, provided his work is satisfactory? Does this detract from the value of the work done? Does it matter to an employer whether his workman abstains from meat on a Friday or not What matters it to the employer whether he does or not, if the work is satisfactory? Now, the State in the education field is an employer. It is also a. monopolist. But when our Catholic teachers follow the State syllabus, and do their secular work as well as the State's own. workers, the State says to them, ' I will give you nothing for your

work, because you teach your religion to your children,' Is that fair? Is that just?A Parallel Case. "Ministers of the Government, and members of Parliament pay the market prices for their cabbages, cauliflowers, bananas, sugar, tea, and coffee. They don't ask whether those who grow them are white or yellow, or black-skinned people. They don't ask whether the growers are Catholics or Protestants, or Jews, or Buddhists, or Brahmins. If they find the article good, they pay for it, and they eat it, too, without any squeamishness as to whether the growers pray to the God of the Christians or to Buddha or Confucius. But, because Catholic teachers teach their children the religion of their fathers together with the secular school work, then that secular work is declared ' black ' in this enlightened country!"