NEW CATHOLIC COLLEGE

Hokitika Guardian, 8 February 1927, Page 4

NEW CATHOLIC COLLEGE

OPENED AT OAMARU. OAMABU, Feb. 6. The opening of the now Christian Brothers' Roman Catholic College of St. Mary’s took place this afternoon, and it was attended bv all of the principal dignitaries of the Hierarchy of New Zealand and bv about 2060 people. from a radius of over one hundred miles, including 250 who came by spoeia train from Dunedin.

The now colleyo is a palatial edifice, and it, is sun'onndod liv boautiful and well-kept grounds. It is located two miles from Oamaru, and. until it was aec|iiired by a .syndicate* for tlio Christian Brothers, it was known as the Redeastle Estate.

The visiting clergy to-day included the Most Rev. Dr Redwood, the Archhislion of "Wellington : the Most Rev. T)r O’Shea, the Coadjutor Archbishop of "Wellington; the Right Rev. Dr Cleary. Bishop of Auckland; the Right Rev. Dr Liston. Coadjutor-Bishop of Auckland: the Right Rev. Doctor Brodie, Bishop of Christchurch ; and the Bishop of the Otago Diocese, Rt. Rev. Dr Whyte. Addresses were delivered by Dr Redwood. Bishops Why to and Liston, and also by Air I*’. Milner, Headmaster of the Wnitaki Boys’ High School; Councillor W. Frith, and Mr J. B. Calkin (Dunedin).

Archbishop Redwood congratulated tho Christian Brothers on their eminent success as teachers, not only in this Dominion, but in Australia, and in other lands. He said that tho educated Catholic’s idea of what education ought to ho was, in part, as follows: “Against the growing evils of violence, divorce, juvenile crime, the desecration of tho homo, tho degradation of the theatre, and the lowering of all the standards of womanly modesty and decorum, more legislation will bo lamentably powerless! Xo force, outside of the human conscience, can render men and women orderly chaste, and just for anv considerable time, and especially when they are under the witchery and the spell of .strong and prolonged temptation. Men and women must undergo a change from within. Their minds and hearts must be attuned to the message of a higher ideal than that of mere civic virtue, or social service, or patriotism. Some message of another world must enter their minds and souls in order to lift them above tho allurements and the temptations of the present world. The highwayman who robs the passerby of his purse, or the burglar who lifts your silverware, is far lass dangerous than the State or the educator who despoils tho helpless child of the i one and only guide, support, and strength which enables him to battle with life successfully—with life's trials, multiform temptations, and fas- I cinating allurements. To take God out I of the life of the child, or to leave him j there only during the brief hours of j the Sunday School, is not only a crime in a Christian nation, but a gross and ! wellnigh irremediable pedagogical error. The great duty of the education —considered purely from the standpoint of the natural and normal development of the human faculties—is to put God in the schoolroom, to enthrone j him in the heart and the mind of child- i hood and youth. There is no educational substitute for the Ten Command- | meats—“ Thou shalt not steal” will not restrain the thief or the highwayman. if he has only to fear the human law and prison. It has some chance of doing so when considered as being the right to command obedience, and command of a Supreme Being, who has the power to punish disloyalty with the full and awful consequences of His | just wrath. God and His law—any ed- j ucation omitting to put these two on the programme is hut a scrap of paper, which, in the moment of blind passion, will be torn to shreds. There is no substitute for God and His Law!”