THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2796, 2 February 1872, Page 2

THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

To the Editor. Sir,— Bishop Moran is very unfortunate. I have not yet read any speech of his that has been correctly reported. No matter on what subject he has ventured to address his flock, nor by whom his speeches have been reported, all the reports are wrong. How is this? Have all the reporters banded together to deny justice to poor “ Quid Oireland” and her sons ? 1 bope not. Indeed, many of the reporters are Irishmen, and, 1 hope, proud of our country, and some of them are Catholics. 1 gain, I ask, why in the name of St. Patrick, do they persecute or follow perseveringly, Bishop Moran ? His last address, “epitomised by you, contains some very serious mistakes.” Epitomes fare no better than speeches, in fine! All are wrong. With revered Artemus, I ask, “Why is this thus ?” Seeing the difficulty reporters labour under when attempting to give the public the benefit of the utterances of Bishop Moran to his flock, I am half afraid to criticise his letter, lest he might retort that the printers also had conspired against him. Assuming, however, that there are no “very serious mistakes,” so far as the printers are concerned, in the Bishop’s letter, I hope I may not be excommunicated if I state my belief that there aro very serious mistakes in the letter. On whose shoulders the blame ought to rest I cannot say. The first mistake I find is the statement made that “ the tone of the Dunedin Press is sneering, infidel, and insulting to the clergy.” It is true the Bishop only gives this as his impression. But if I mistake not, there was little said of “ impressions ” in his last speech to his flock. Then the statement was made as a fact. I have carefully perused all the daily and weekly papers published in Dunedin during the last few years, and I have certainly failed to discover any “infidel” tone, if by the term infidel is meant atheistic. It is true (mirahile didu) pone of the Dunedin papers have allowed 'th‘6 clergy of any denomination to “lord it ove'f them,” ’And if this absence of passive obedience denotes the presence of iufidelitv, the Bishop is right. The word “infidel" is suoh a muefi-abuged ypord, that the Bishop had better define it, and then your readers would be fthle to state whether his impression was warranted, or whether the Bishop had trusted too much to “imaginative schoolboy ism.” Another point in the Bishop’s letter to which at this time I would also refer, is the assert!™ m-ado that “if you do not teach religion, you must teach nonreligion.” What non-religion is I do hC* know, never having heard of such an entity before. Assuming that it is another synonym for ‘f infidelity, ” I deny his assertion. The Bishop’s statement means, if it means anything, that you are training ipfjdels whenever you cease to ply youngsters tvith Church dogmas, catechisms, creeds, etc. Is this so ? Does the teaching of the multiplication table to a young Irishman make him a Protestant or an Infidel ? And is he to be everlastingly damned if he commits to memory the position of Lough Neagh, county of Wexford, and the Rules of Syntax ? If so, it were better that all “ secular’’—another much abused word —education were given up at once apd for eyei,’. Even in the Catholic schools, which 1 have attended, the Church catechism was only taught at stated t'mes. It is true that our teachers took up a large portion of our time in saying prayers, the creeds, and in repeating the following among other questions;— Q. How many persons are there in God ? A. Three Divine Persons really distinct, and equal in all things.—{l John, V. 7.) Q How do you call the three Divine Persons ?

A. The Father, the Sou, and the Holy Gbojt, &c,, &c. Hut then we dicj, y/’thout mixing up citechisius and arithmetic, get a knowledge of ratio, and 1 vfe wetd taught h6w‘ to %o!ye equations. And if a teafchOr has to set apart a certain portibp qf 1 his time to secular subjects, what harm isdone'by allowing children to be taught religious subjects by a different master, and this is all the secularists ask. I may state en that my belief in the answer to the first question I have quoted, was greatly shaken when, by reading, I found out that the best Biblical scholars acknowledge that 1 John, v, 7, is a spurious or interpolated passage. Now the Bishop knows well enough that the greater division of labor there is, the chances are that the thing on which the labor is spept will be h?ttef 4°B o fl r performed. Nor is education apy exception’ tq this gppepal Statement, Indeed this is admitted by Catholics, for in Catholic colleges there are different masters for different subjects, Why, then, cannot the State provide for a part of education, leaving that other part to the clergy. This must be done ; this division has to be made in all schools, and why not have two schools as well as two masters ? Leaving the Bishop to answer my queries, I would jUSt like tq point out, in conclusion, some further statements be hat made which seemtobe “very serious mistakes, ” and which, I fear, are typographical errors. It is not true that three fourths of the people of the people of the United States of America nPY e F enter a church, if by “people” is meant persons ablp tq attend church. Bub even granting that this statement was not a ire;y serious mistalce, dqes it prove ? Is secular education the cause of the non-at-teqdaijcp at church ? M ay there pot be mapy other or quite different causes ’! The number of newspapers, for instance f The Bishop’s logic amounts to this ;—Certain things co-exist : therefore the one is the cause of the other. The fallacy is easily seen ; I might with as much propriety urge that the printing and publishing of so many

newspapers as are published, or the long and cold winters, were the cause. Then, again, I always thought in France denominational education had full sway. And yet the Bishop seems to imply that the Petroleuses were children of secularists’ training. May not the secularists with all fairness retort — See what has happened in France, where “ the divinely - appointed interpreters of Christian law ” had full power over all schools : let us therefore for ever do away with denominational schools ? As for the passage, “ He that is not with me is against me ” —its bearing I cannot see. The first time I saw Bishop Moran, he was in one carriage and the most devoted of h's flock in another. Certainly they were not with him : were they therefore against him and opposed to him ? 1 am, &c , County Wexford. Dunedin, February 1, 1872.