The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3960, 3 November 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1875.

Our Roman Catholic friends, the clergy, have thrown down the gauntlet and directed that all belonging to their Church " worthy of the name " shall advocate a denominational system of education at the next election, in this, if they reflected for a moment, they have not done wisely. They arc constant in their complaints of iujustu"' shown them, and of the intolerance of others, yet they take the lead in the exhibition of those very dispositions of : mind which they condemn. We should be very sorry to imagine that because the clergy have spoken out, their sentiments are shared in by the laity to any great extent. The fact is patent that in every European country the laity, as a body, are asserting their right to freedom of thought and action. In Italy a system of secular education has been adopted, and, consistently with the duty of the State Government to the people of every country, no other system can be defended. The Roman Catholic clergy we know hold widely different views from ourselves on the subject. As a matter of opinion they have undoubtedly a right to them, but we have an equal right to question their correctness, and to dissent from them. They claim to have what they esteem their share of appropriations from public revenue for educational purposes to be disposed of as a private fund, over which there shall be no public control. The reasons they put forth are specious : they claim it mainly on the ground of difference of religion, which they say renders it impossible to send children of their persuasion to a public school, and as additional reasons they claim to supervise the instruction given to the children of their own denomination, and to carry that supervision so far as to object to the use of school books containing the best-authenticated historical facts. We know that this will be condemned ns a misrepresentation, but Ave write it advisedly. On the first plea, that of the right to a share in the educational appropriation, to bo expended as they deem fit, such a claim is inadmissible on every ground of justice and State policy. That it is the duty of the State to provide public schools for the general education of the children of a country, is now acknowledged by all excepting a few extreme Spencerian theorists ; but this obligation of itself implies that in those arrangements no religious instruction shall be included, for the State has nothing to do with religious dootrines. On this neutral ground alone can appropriations from the public revenue for education be justly made, for if it is in the slightest* degree departed from, a preference is given to one sect above all others, and the money of all the rest is made use of for the propagation of peculiar doctrines. The Roman Catholic priesthood say that this may be avoided by apportioning to each sect a sum of money proportioned to its numbers, and leaving thera to educate their children according to their faith. This is a very ingenious way of putting the

matter; but it will not bear investigation. Under the plea of educating children, it really is asking the State to aid them to spread their peculiar religious doctrines. This is evident in their published reasons for objecting to scud children to the secular schools provided by the Government for secular they are as nearly as possible, and we trust at no distant time they will be strictly and purely so. The objections are that the Roman Catholic clergy are not permitted to dictate what shall be taught, by whom it shall be taught, and from what books it shall be taught, and that theiefore they cannot prevent other doctrines than their own being imparted, and have no opportunity of teaching those they hold. In other words they wish to remove the children from all other influences lest they should not grow up Roman Catholic. The use, then, which they desire to make of the educational appropriation is that they shall perpetuate the Roman Catholic faith at the j expense of the State—a purpose that I no State has any right to entertain or ' sanction. Precisely the same objection is valid against other sects setting up a j like claim. The clergy of the Church of England have made a similar demand, which must be rejected on like grounds. Governments do not exist for propagating matters of faith. The Roman Catholic, or the member of the Church of England, or the Presbyterian may be right in his faith; we do not pretend to say anything against any man's religious views so long as he is content to hold them and spread them without interfering with the equal rights of his fellow-citizens. If a Roman Catholic or an English Episcopalian imagines that there is danger to a child's eternal welfare by sending it to a public school where no faith whatever is taught, we may smile at his over anxiety, which all experience shows to be groundless, and concede him full liberty to take other steps for training the child. But that is no reason why he should not contribute to a public institution founded for his use if he likes to take advantage of it, as well as for the use of others. State education is considered by the soundest thinkers and is proved by experience to be essential to the welfare of every community. The system is established for a public good, and he has no right to be allowed to withdraw his quota from it that he may upend it on his private purposes.