RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 998, 13 December 1910, Page 4

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

1- ■ 0t _ ATTITUDE OF'. BOM AN CATHOLICS * What Bishop Grimes said at St, Joseph's Church on Sunday evening r about the Roman Catholic grievance \ against the present educational system t was echoed and amplified by Mr. Martin d Kennedy, in a speech at the St. Patis rick's College conversazione last night, y #It was thirty-four years, ho 6aid, since Catholics were deprived of (their share of the distribution of educationfunds. They were told that they were , on tho same footing as other denomiha- '. irons; but was that so? Was there any other denomination ■ whose children were denied higher secondary education by reason of the religious convictions of their parents? There was not. Catholic* alone realised that they could not accept any education that did not rest upon a .religious basis'. He' was not - blaming any particular Government, bel cause no Government could give what t they wanted so long as public opinion , was what it was. _ Seven-eighths of the j people of tho Dominion were professing , Christians, and were prepared to take I the Nelson system, or the Sydney sys- ' tern, or any system except the one that f would give Catholic children an opput- , tunity of having, a religious education.' . The: Catholics were one-seventh of the 1 • community, and were paying about- £8 [ a head, or .£150,000 a year to provide re- . ligious education. When the new collegs - at Christchurch was established, there ■ Would 'be four places of Catholic higher education in New Zealand, and the costi to Catholics would be about .£IO,OOO a ■ year for higher education alone. He I' thought there were signs, in England at any.rate, that fairer views on this ques-, Hon might yet. prevail. ; '