The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 968, 18 March 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Dk Cpkakv, the emineut Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland and whilom editor of the Tablet, and the editor of the Wellington Post have been crossing swords on the all-important subject of secular education in our State Schools. The Post champions the existing system of ' ‘ free, secular and compulsory ” education. Dr Cleary agrees with education being free and compulsory, but not secular. Dr Cleary says, “The numerous friends of Christian education in New Zealand are entitled to know why, in a Christian land, the refining influences which created the Christian home should be banished from the public school; why childhood’s incomparable exemplar and Ideal should be barred, under legal penalties, from contact with His ‘ little ones ’ during the working hours of the system.” He argues that the State instead of being “neutral” has taken the side of “the aggressive atheists ot Continental Europe.” “ Here,” says Dr Cleary, “ are a few of the many pertinent queries in point that occur to me: —(i). Do you object to religion in the State-subsidised system, on some principle of life-philosophy or of child-training (pedagogy) ? You may possibly plead that religion has no rightful place, or at least no necessary place, in school life, (a.) If so, on what particular principles do you base such a plea? (b.) Do these principles also require the banishment of religion from the upbringing of children in the home ? Either they do, or they do not. If they do, we believing Christians will duly make a note of the circumstance. If they do not, on what principles of life-philosophy or of education do you favour religion as a factor in the home-training of the child, and condemn religion in his school-training ? Why subject youth to opposite influences in the home and in the school ? And if you black-ball religion in the school, on what principle do you retain it in any relation of life ? Again (2): Do you approve of the union of religion and public instruction as a general principle ? And do you object to it in a Statesubsidised system, not in itself, and not on any principle of lifephilosophy or of child-training (pedagogy), but solely on account

of some practical difficulties which you foresee, or on account of some consideration of social convenience or political expediency?” Dr Cleary concludes by stating that "no system of education can, in regard to religion, be ‘ neutral ’ ; that our secular system is as dogmatic and ‘ sectarian ’ and ‘ denominational,’ in very real senses, : as it well can be ; that, in a word, its vaunted ‘ neutrality ’ is all a ; sham.” .

In reply the Post caustically remarks that “the task is not entirely free from terror, for when the ecclesiastical whip is cracked and the odium theologicum invoked it behoves the layman to walk warily.” The Post continues ; “ ‘ Atheists we know, and Christians we know,” says Dr Cleary, in effect, ‘ but who are ye ? ’ To quote him precisely ; 1 Atheists and Christians both know their principles, and act consistently with them.’ The children of darkness, the unfortunate witness is told, are opposed to religious teaching in the schools ; the children of light favour it; on which side are you ? and why ? The amazing assumption that the Christians are all on one side in this matter not merely justifies, our cross-examiner’s can-

did profession of his ignorance of the principles upon which the exclusion of religion from the State Schools is based, but betrays a still more extraordinary ignorance of the personnel and of the religious beliefs of those who support that policy. Atheists and secularists there are, of course, among them, but to suggest that either in 1877, when the Education Act was passed, oral any subsequent time, the Act depended upon the support of such people is plainly absurd. Neither scepticism nor anti-religious bigotry inspired Parliament or people when they put the measure upon the statute-book, nor has it depended upon such influences for its support. The great majority of the supporters of the policy, which has now stood for more than thirty years, have as good title to the name of Christian as Dr Cleary himself, though they differ widely from him both in their appreciation ol the value of a national system of education, in their ideal of religious liberty, and in their estimate of the means by which the light is to be spread. If religious belief, and not the political treatment of a religious question, is to be made the test, these people cannot be drafted out with the goats into the outer darkness of the atheistic pen. The opinion ol the Christians to whom we refer as the mainstay of the present system of primary education is not that religion is a bad thing, but that it cannot be taught by the State without creating intolerable evils. Religion they believe to be a necessary element in a complete education, but plainly the State cannot teach it without first adopting a religion of its own. The objections to the latter course are so notorious that it is practically without support, and certainly Dr Cleary and his fellow Catholics would not support it in the present circumstances of this country. in the hands of the politicians religion has sometimes been made an instrument of more evil than good, and the moral which this State has drawn, and which we believe that an increasing number of States will draw as the years roll by, is that the best service the politicians can render to religion is to keep their hands off it. It is not from enmity to religion, but from the tear of injuring both the cause of religion and its own secular work, that the State excludes religious teaching from its schools. So long as the State pursues this policy with rigid -impartiality and provides a free secular education tor every child we hold that it has performed its duty, and is doing no sect an injustice. Nothing that Dr Cleary says shakes our previous argument that the Roman Catholics suffered no injustice from this policy, even though they prefer to have their children educated by their own teachers. When therefore Dr. Cleary asks us why we object to the State endowment of denomiuationalism, we reply (1) that the present system is comprehensive and impartial, and discharges in the most obvious and effective way a primary obligation of the State ; (2) that denominationalism has no locus standi at all unless some injustice can be proved against the present system ; (3,) that to encourage sectarianism or even sectionalism in general education would be opposed to the solidarity which it is the aim of every wise nation to promote among its citizens. ilenominatioualism in education is directly opposed to nationalism. Our argument, ol course, assumes that the present secular system of education is not dogmatic or sectarian or denominational, and we shall be interested to see how Dr. Cleary will carry out his promise to prove the contrary.”