EDUCATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 936, 29 December 1910, Page 4

EDUCATION.

FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC STANDPOINT

(By the Rev Father Schaefer)

Education is often mistaken for knowledge or schooling, and it is measured by the number of examinations a man may have passed ; the initials he writes behind his name. These things are only a part (a part, it is true, not to be neglected), but after all only a minor factor in education.. “A youth,” says Tennyson, ” may be gorged with knowledge and yet te really uneducated. For mere instruction is not enough to form even the intellect, much less to mould the heart and form the character, which are the true end of education.” A man may have passed through all the schools and universities of England and the Continent, he may have obtained all his degrees in law, medicine, art, and science yet for all that he may be a scoundrel. There are in every man’s soul two distinct faculties, which play an equally important part in every action of his life, the intelligence or the mind, and the character or will. True education is the one which trains not only the mind, by instilling in it useful knowledge, but also and chiefly the heart, by forming it to virtuous habits and endowing it with the will power to do what is right and to avoid what is evil. But nowhere can this double training more efficaciously be imparted than in the Catholic school. A short comparison between the Catholic and public (undenominational) school will show the superiority of the former. Our teachers are nuns, brothers, priests, who have the qualifications ot the public school teacher, and over and above, a thorough grounding in the truths of our religion and if the old motto is true, ‘‘Words move, examples draw,” they will train their pupils by the example of their virtuous lives more even than by their precepts. In our colleges or high schools our teachers have undergone the double training of the seminary and the university, and they have shown by the distinctions they secured at the universities of New Zealand and the old countries that they are well on a level, if not superior, to their fellow teachers and are well able to hold up their heads amongst the most brilliant intellectual circles of this Dominion. The result obtained by our pupils both in the primary school reports and in civil service and matriculation exams, is on an average more creditable in the Catholic school than in any other. Intellectually, therefore, our schools compare most favourably with the public school. Now, let us compare the moral training imparted in the Catholic school system to the formation of moral character resulting from the State school. The secular teacher works for a salary. His object is to secure a living for himself and his family, and if his salary were withdrawn he would abandon the position to-morrow. What interest has he in the children’s moral or spiritual welfare; in their behaviour at home or outside the school. Provided they know their lessons, satisfy the inspector and pass their standards, the rest is no concern of his. Even supposing the secular teacher has the moral training ot his pupils at heart, for I have no doubt, in fact I know, that there are many upright and earnest men on the secular staff who fully realise the importance of this branch of education. What sentiment in the child’s heart can they appeal to ? What principles of morality can they bring lorward ? The public school does not directly attack God. It ignores Him, and without God all ideas of morality, of responsibility, of conscience, fall to the ground. We do good and we avoid evil because it is the commandment of God, because there is to come a great day of reckoning on which we have to give an account of all our actions to an all-seeing judge, because we expect a supernatuial reward for the good we do and punishment ior our evil deeds. Take away from our schools these first principles, the foundation of all morality and what have you left but the animal instinct of fear and self-preservation. Do what you like, provided you are not caught, provided you do not suffer from the consequences just as a dog will refrain from stealing a bone because he tears the master’s stick. Hence the depravity of morals, the weakening of character in the public school youth, of which, at a recent meeting in Wellington, the masters and inspectors themselves were the first to complain. It is the natural

result ot a school without God. Now, look at the Catholic school. How different the teachers look upon the children entrusted to their care. They receive no salary, no earthly reward whatsoever for the care and trouble they take over their pupils, but in each one of them they see a most precious treasure confided to them by the parents and by Almighty God, an immortal soul for which our divine Eord shed until the last drop of his precious blood, a soul of which they will have to give an account of on the last day. Their first aim will be therefore to make that boy or that girl a good man or a good woman, a credit to the church and to the state. Everything in their school, every reading and writing class will be but a means to this great end, to bring the child nearer to God to raise it above material and worldly motives, to develop in its soul the ideas of conscience and responsibility to God. Hence the great advantage, and the necessity of the Catholic school. Hence the obligation for al 1 parents of sending their children to the Catholic school, even if it entails a slight sacrifice such as a journey by train or on horseback. Eet us not imagine that we satisfy our duty towards our children by letting them, or even compelling them to attend Sunday school or catechism classes. Religion is not a lesson classified as such with geography or history. A man may be a doctor in divinity and yet be thoroughly irreligious, as also there may be children who dislike learning their catechism or bible-history yet love their religion Religion is au influence which must permeate our whole life, and the whole system of education. Our aim is to equip a child for life —not only for this life but also, and chiefly, for the next. We must, therefore, develop all his faculties, not only physical and intellectual but also moral and religious. This can not be done by scraps of catechism driven into a child’s head like the jaw-breaking names of foreign geography, but it is done by the surroundings, the influence, the atmosphere of the Catholic school. It you prepare a young colt for racing you do not let it run wild with other horses and bring it in once a week for one hour’s solid gallop, but you separate it from the rest, you feed it, groom it, exercise it every day. So, also, if you have the religious education of your children at heart (and it is your most sacred duty to do so) it is not sufficient to bring them to a catechism class once a week, but the Catholic ideals and surroundings must be kept before them day after day. There must be unity in a child’s life. Home, church and school must all be cast in the same mould, built on the same principles, each one acting on the mind in its own way. In the school the child must find the same God whom he worships in the churches, in the home, and in the whole universe. Religion must enter into the whole process of education. These few ideas are pul before you in order that you may well understand the position of our Catholic school. If we open it here it is not, as has been hinted at,, out of a spirit ot strife or opposition, but out of a spirit of solicitude for our children and the future of the church in this parish. It is our wish and our aim that our Catholic children be well grounded in the principles of their faith and grow up good Christians as well as good citizens. Everywhere, and at all times, the Church has founded schools, and the duty of teaching her children is one entrusted to her by our divine Eord himself. “Go ye and teach all nations,” said He to His apostles on Mount Olivet, just before returning to His Father’s home. Teach them not only their faith but everything worth teaching. And when the bishop imposes hands on a young priest he says to him : “ Receive thou the power of offering sacrifice and of teaching.” After the duty of offering holy mass and administering the sacraments, the most sacred duty of the priesthood is to teach. For centuries, during the period of time so unjustly called the dark ages, there were no schools but the monasteries and universities established by the Catholic church, and wherever the Catholic missionary has set his foot there he has raised a school beside his church. Now that the governments ot the different nations, awakening to a sense of duty, have taken the education of its citizens in hand, there is no reason why the Church should give up her claim on her own children and instruct and educate them as she has done ever siuce her foundation, and will continue to do until the end ot time.