PAGANISM.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9393, 13 March 1909, Page 6

PAGANISM.

BISHOP NELIGAN’S ATTACK.

SIR ROBERT STOUT’S DEFENCE Press Association. Auckland, March 8. A correspondence which has taken, place during the past year between Sir Robert Stout and Dr. Neligan, Bishop of Auckland, in regard to education matters, is published by the Herald. The letters refer to the statements which Bishop Neligan Was,reported to have made at Home last year in regard to the national system of education in New Zealand, and in the coarse of which he was stated to have referred to the exist* enoe of “paganism” in New Zealand. These criticisms- were subequently replied to by Sir Robert Stout in an article in the New Zealand Herald, and the correspondence in question followed. The bishop (who has never admitted the the newspaper report of his remarks) in writing to the Chief Justice, said that Sir Robert Stout had based his criticism on a summarised report of hLs (Bishop Neligan’s) remarks, hut his Lordship does not state what he really did say. He continues : “With neither the logic of the conclusions you draw from admittedly vitiated premises, nor the expressed views which you, ( in common with myself, are entitled to hold concerning religion and education, have I any concern at present. My concern is with what makes in a nation for fairness, justice, honour and generosity in public life. Actions that rqfake against these qualities hurt national life.”

The final letter in tbe correspondence, which was written by Sir Robert Stoat last month contains the following remarks’“l am afraid that yon do not yet realise the position I have taken np, and fall to appreciate the resentment amongst many in New Zealand at your attack: on onr system of education and on tbe fair fame of onr country settlers. If one public man attacks a system in force amongst us, attempts to weaken or destroy it, and in order to accomplish that end attacks tbe character of some of our settlers, then there is a live question to discuss, and that is the question between ns, and no other. I much regxet yon do not see this. The question really is: Was my criticism justified by the facta? I wrote, as 1 stated, under the assumption and assurance, though I was loch to believe it, that the report of your sermon was accurate. If it was,' I was justified. If it was not, £ was not. And how easily you could have set the matter right! You have, however, failed to say whether there was anything in the context of your sermon that modified or nullified the part reported, and what inference must anv one, whether trained in law or theology, draw from such silence? Will you even now say wherein tbe report on which I founded my remarks was inaccurate or misleading? And, if the report was correct, attempt to justify your statemants? I feel sure thatjrifjyou bad examined the statistics of crime, for example, and had witnessed the growth of altruism in New Zealand during the last forty years, yon would have found that ethically our people had improved The people who are the most criminal are not those who have been trained in seonlar schools. Relatively to our population, serious crime has lessened since 1877, and the New Zealanders trained in our secular schools compare more than favourably with those brought up under the sanction of ecclesiasticism. *’

In noticing a magazine article written by the bishop in Jnly last. Sir Robert says : “Ido not think you fairly state the position of the State secular school when you say ‘God is an extra’ in each a school. The phrase in the writings of layman would be deemed to lack reverence. It will depend, no doubt, on;how we define the terms we use whether yonr criticism is just or fair, or neither. If to acquaint boys and girls with the cosmos, to teaclrthem something of the universe and the immensities with which we are surrounded, is to ‘make God an extra,’ then we do not agree in the use of the English language. I should imagine that attempting to teach children what are, after all, nin points*of belief and gpostaxings would be, to use your phrase, to make ‘God an extra.’ We differ in in these things, and so do the people of New Zealand. Hence the need of the (State shutting out from its schools religions opinions, and confining its efforts to the teaching |of real knowledge and true morality. It has been painful to me to write as Ihave done, bat my devotion to a beneficent system of education, with which I have in some small way been associated for o*er forty years, must be my excuse. Part of my creed is that any one that attempts to destroy our secular system of education, and tb Joreate divisions and heartburnings amongst ns by denominational schools, is (no doubt unwittingly) an enemy to New Zealand. Citizen life is not too strong in any nation, and a denomination school system, when established, weakens it everywhere.”