EDUCATION QUESTION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1061, 25 February 1911, Page 10

EDUCATION QUESTION.

BISHOP CLEARY'S PASTORAL. "THE SECULAR SYSTEM: DOGMATIC AND SECTARIAN." In tho courso of his Lenten Pastoral Lottor on "Tho Child in the Homo and tho School," tho Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland (Dr. Cleary) states: — Wo havo already pointed out that the exclusion of Christ and Christian teaching and practico from tho schools —under legal pains and penalties—must bo defended, if at all, by an appeal to a philosophy of lifo and to tlio principles of pedagogy (that is, of tho science of child-training). For (as already set forth) education is for lifo; notions of lifo and its dostiny determino its processes; and between philosophy and pedagogy (tho scicnco of child-training) thero is an obvious and intimate connection. Tho position of tho French and other Continental supporters of tlio Christlcss school is wrong-headed, erroneous, and unjust. But it is at least intelligible and consistent; it is based on. tho principles of an anti-Christian and materialistic philosophy of life. Now, of all pooplo, legislators and educators should act in tho normal human way, by reason- and principlo, rather than by passion, or passing interest, or caprice. Wo are thus entitled to assume, and—until evidence to tho contrary is forthcoming —bound to assumo, that tho Australasian, .as well as tho French, promoters and defenders of tlio: Godless school system, tako their stand on somo or othor of tho principles of life-philosophy or of pedagogy. It thus becomes their duty to set forth and establish';these principles—if they can; for tho burden of proof is upon their'shoulders. We do not supposo that, like their French fellow-workers in the "cause," they aro generally, or in any considerable numbers, animated by conscious -' or intended hostility to religion. But .why are they so suspiciously and so generally unwilling to state and ■ maintain tho guiding principles -'that • underlie their MlicyP'.'Now. the following";''principles" arc nfccosMrily implied in our system-of secularised pnhlio instruction (wo qu'oto from a. recent statement of ours in tho secular press): /'Both tho State system and tho religious system start with the principle that education is a preparation for life. But here thoy part' company. Tho secular systora rests, in logical effect, upon the following implied dogmas: (1) That religion in education is inconsistent with or useless to tho true lifeaim of tho child; (2), that tho,State has the moral right to exclude religion from tho school; (3) .that the exclusion of religion from: tho school promotes, or' tends to promrito, tho truo life-aim of tho child; and (4) that tho immemorial teaching and practico of Christendom, ns to tho need of an intimate union of religion and education, aro falso, or useless, or pernicious. Hore wo. havo a highly-, sectarian set of implied, dogmas . regarding V religion—in other words, religious dogmas.. . These represent an 'attitudo ; towards religion, a school of -thought"•■•'.(combined-.;, with action), an 'ism'.'' ''Thoy-'dircctly-isuit tho educational ideals o'f ! tho secularist and tho Agnostic. They do not suit tho educational ideals of tho Catholics, and of tho largo body of earnest men and women of various faiths,, who desiro somo measure of religion' in our public schools. . . . The' implied sectarian

dogmas of the secular system are forced by-law upon our public schools. Thoso parents that accept thom aro rewarded: with tlio freo education of their children; those who cannot in conscience Accept them must either smother their conscioritious objections in return for tlio valued boon of free education, or they must pay a double and continuous tax oi' fine—one for tho education which thoy-cannot in conscience 'accopt, the other for tho education which they can." Somo supporters of the secular school system may protest that they do- not hold-the State-mado dogmas set forth iibovo. But this in no way alters tho situation, For these dogmas aro logically , involved in our secular system itself. Thoy; "inhere"'to it, whether this or that 'fr'anior or' 'advocate'j of; \ ft; maintains thera . co'nseioiisly. .or subf consciously, ;o'r jepudiates theiri:' If he maintains them, -his. position is. (for what it is worth) at least logical; if ho rejects them ho 'is guilty of tho not uncommon political or journalistic folly of inconsistency—doing that for which St. Paul rebuked sundry pagans of his daj;; acting against tho better things which they see aiid tinirig" the publio. schools against God and against His Christ, for the sake of somo supposed political 'or ' social expediency. As if it were over oxpedicnt to disregard high principles and sacred duties, to violato "tho Crown rights of Christ," to inflict a' gravo wrong upon tho souls of His chorishcd "little onosl"

Tliero is no such: thing possiGlo las "neutrality" in regard to religion, where, it is a, question of , education— that is, of tho preparation of children for the duties and responsibilities of life. Such a theory is historically false; •it is logically impossible.- Religion lias been for lohg ages moulding hiiniaii -life and conduct)' and tho. : preparation of lifo—touching tlioin' at- ton thousand points; and whoro they meet they must either go together arm iu arm or stand opposed in tho shock of conflict. There is no practical middlo course. Here/ in a very real'and special manner, the Saviour's warning words apply: • !'Hd that is not with Mo is against Me; and ho that gathereth not with Mo, scattcrotli" (Luko xi., 23). Nor, in view of what has been already shown, can tli? "ignoring" of God in education be deemed to bo a neutral act, or other than an attitudo of hostility to Him. "Tako-care," said tho noted statesman and Sorbonno professor, Jules Simon, in tho French Senate, to tho advocates of tho secular schools in his days, "tako care, gentlemen; when it is a: question of God, silcnco is equivalent to a denial of Him." And by what trick of reasoning can wo bo induced to regard as a "neutral" or friendly act, tho banishment of God and religion, by. formal legislative, enactment.and legal penalties, from tho plaeo in the • schools which (on Christian principles) Ho holds by natural right, by pedagogical necessity, and by the proscription of ages? Tho Rev. Dr. C. Stuart Ross, a Presby-. terian writer, tells us tlia tho introduction of the secular system into New Zoaland "was hailed in somo quarters with immoderate delight as a triumph of secularism over tho Christian creeds" ("Education and Educationists in Otago,'' p. 47). Tho Dunedin "Outlook" (Presbyterian), oii various occasions (as, for instance, in November, 1898) described tho Now Zealand official educational schemo as "a system of puro secularism," "as much a denominational systom as is a Roman or. a Presbyterlinn." It is, in point of fact, a form of secularism raised to tho Tank of an official State creed, and foroed upon tho consciences of tho pcoplo by what are, in efTect (as has been shown), legal pains and penalties. In a very real sense our "noutral" secular public school system is. "denominational." Tho noted English author and politician Lord Brabourno (better known as Mr. Knatchbull Hugossen) wisely said, in this connection, in a pamphlet published in 1872: "'Denomination, 1 as you well know, is only a longer word, meaning tho samo thing as 'name 1 or 'title.' A denominational school is therefore really only a school called by a particular I name, or a school founded by peoplo who aro called by a particular namo; therefore, a Eociilnrist school, from which religion is oxcludod. is just as much a denominational school as any other; and the moro correct namo for other schools would be 'anti-secularist' or 'relkious'tcaehinc 1 sohooli."-

"I cannot," said tho late Marquis of Salisbury, "imagino a greater evil to tho country than setting up in every parish a man whoso duty it is to press upon tho parishioners and the young tho superior importance of secular to religious knowledge." The evil of our secular system lies in what it fails to inculcate, as well as in tho four false and mischievous dogmas on whjch it is based; in tho manner in which it forces religion into tho background of tho child's life; in the consequent peril of material absorption; in its failure to strengthen and train tho moral conscience and .the will when such training is most successful and. most urgently needed, and when, for a great and increasing number of young lives, such training must be imparted, or not at all.