EDUCATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4597, 14 December 1875, Page 3

EDUCATION.

TO THB EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEAIAND TIMES. Sjß,—"A Catholic" writing to your paper of November 2fHh says:—"lcall it justice to Catholics, in a certain measure—to allow and enable them, even at comparatively little expense to the public funds, to have their children effectively brought up in the principles and practice of their denomination;" but he must have had very little experience in the colony indeed, if he has not discovered that the ideas of the settlers are utterly repugnant to a State religion, or the fostering of denominational education by State funds. And if the Board of Education has promised what would be tantamount to even a temporary endowment of a Soman Catholic school, they may well pause before they carry out a compact that would inflict indeed but a slight injury on the Protestant portion of the community, yet one that might be fraught with very serious consequences to the social advancement of the Roman Catholic body, not only in "Wellington, but' throughout INew Zealand. Por here we are not divided into a church and chapel interest—orthodoxy and dissent—conformity and non-conformity—as at Home. Our settlers are mainly made up of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; and in legislating on the subject of education, our rulers, in the case of the second, have to study not so much the feelings of the Catholic clergy, for which they have all proper respect, but the wishes of the Catholic parents, who are desirous that their children should have an equal chance with the children of Protestants, should stand side by side with them, and that they should work harmoniously together in building up a great, a united, and a blessed colony.—l am, &c, Pkotestant.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. My absence,at the time of the appearance of "A Catholic's "second letter, must form roy only excuse for tronMiDg yon on the subject at this date. And »ince it contains not a little that is fitted to mislead' the public mind, and several points of importance to which your correspondents "E. T." and "Polutropos," in their very telling replies have not made reference, yon will kindly allow me perhaps another opportunity of expressing my views on a subject which has occupied a good deal of my thoughts, and which claims the closest attention of the people of Wellington at the present time. _ For the sake of convenience, I suppose," A Catholic" in three or four instances quoted my letter in a form so incomplete as to enable him easily to evade the points at issue. So falacious or sophistical indeed are the arguments he uses, that nothing but the badness of his case could excuse him from the charge, either of utter weakness or of culpable disengenousnesß - He charges me, for example, with saying that the Education Board had discovered, just in time, that property built on a Catholic site must of necessity become Catholic property. This fa not what I said, and A Catholic, unless his perceptive faculty be hopelessly obtuse must know that it is not. I stated that the Board had discovered, which it was not very unnatural for them to overlook for the time, that a school built at however great cost to the public, and on such a site, might, in terms of the agreement become the property of the Eoman Catholic Church and cease to be in any way under the supervision of the Board at the end or six months. Why did your correspondent omit to notice this last expression containing as it does the gist of the reply he solicited ? He comes next to what I termed "the more fundamental question;" but here again he omits the very clause that gives it its fundamental character. I did not ask, "Why should the Government build or support schools for the special benefit of the Catholic community?" but, "Whyshould it do so if it does not, or cannot, confer a like privilege on every other religious body within the State!" To the question in his own form, "A Catholic,' with great simplicity replies, "Because the Education Board promised to do so—and a promise creates a right." Now, it has been already shown, by " E.T." 1 think, that the Board made no such promise; but if they did, then, in my humble opinion, their promise was a grave blunder, and could never support a fundamental right—whatever other kind of right it might involve. Fundamentally considered, or viewed in the light of abstract justice, the Government has no right to confer a privilege on one body of the people it cannot confer on every other. And this privilege it cannot confer in the instance before us, without defeating the very,end in view, viz., the advancement of the highest interests of education. I had asked on what ground it could be claimed in a country like this, which repudiates the Idea of Stato religion, that any one body should have the privilege, at the public expense, of having its children effectually brought up in the principles and practice of its own denomination ? And, in again misquoting my question, "A Catholic" says, "He stands on the ground of conscience, which no State has a right to encroach upon. He Btands on the ground of liberty.

which the State promises to all. He stands on the ground of Divine revelation," &c. Now, all this may be very plausible to the unthinking, but it contains not a particle of logic. AVho wants to encroach upon "A Catholic" conscience, or deny him his liberty or question the sacredness of Divine revelation ? Not the Education Board most certainly, nor yet the New Zealand Government. " Conscience," I know, has sometimes been saddled with strange things—has been appealed to as a ground for heating the flies of persecution to a sevenfold heat —but it will take a large amount of special pleading to show that the rights of conscience require the erecting of Eoman Catholic schools, or that our Government is guilty of persecution,' by withholding such a boon. According to "A Catholic's own showing, it would just be as reasonable to ask from the public funds a grant in-aid of the priests who are engaged from time to time in saying uiassor attending to the confessional, as to ask for a grant-m----aid of his schools. The religious characteristics of the Roman Catholic schools, according to jour correspondent's second letter, are almost as distinctive as are those of the churches of that body. So distinctively religious are they, that to grant them money from the public funJs would be equivalent to the granting of State aid to the Eoman Catholic Church. If " A Catholic" should say that the withholding of such aid deprives him of a privilege in the matter of education, which most other citizens enjoy, then I respectfully submit that this difficulty or supposed grievance must be ascribed to a peculiarity which lodges in himself, or in his system, and which involves, I believe, an impracticability. In legislation, the abstract in a matter of justice must of necessity assume the form of tho concrete ; hence it is impossible for any Act of Parliament, educational or other, to provide for all the peculiarities of individual cases. The State, in the exercise of its wisdom, contemplates the greatest possible amount of good for the largest possible number of the people. By adopting a system of denominational teaching, our Government would positively be hindering the attainment of such an end; and any one who says that he must have denominational teaching must simply be regarded as voluntarily excluding himself from the public benefit. On the other hand, let us have a system of national education, comprehending not a single province merely, but the whole colony, and let that system embrace not only our elementary schools, but also our grammar schools, together with affiliated colleges of a somewhat higher character than the institutions which now bear that name, and all these culminating in one New Zealand University, and we shall in process of time have a system of education as complete as anything to be found in the civilised world, and one which will go far to accomplish the end which every wise Government ought to contemplate Apologising for occupying so much of your space. —I am, &c, Presbytfr.