Catholic Education.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4404, 29 April 1909, Page 3

Catholic Education.

To Catholics education, of its nature, necessarily implies the development of the child’s whole nature—physical, iutellec-j tual, moral, religions. It implies somej thing more than mere secular instruction (such as reading, writing, arithmetic! geography, etc.) for thfse are not edul cation—they are at best the mere com! munication of worldly knowledge or thd means of acquiring knowledge. Net amount of mere instruction constitutes' education, apart from the moulding and training of the heaic and will and moral conscience of the child, and apart from reference to its true nature and destiny. We have already pointed out the essentiallydogmaticand narrow denominational character of the system of hard secularism which legally holds sway in our public school system, and which banishes religion as if it were a foul and evil thing —as if religion and the State were enemies to each other ; we have shown how those parents who accept this form of secularism are rewarded with the free instruction of their children ; and on the other hsnd, how those who cannot in conscience accept it must either smother their conscientious convictions in return for the valued boon of such instruction or (as an alternative) pay a double and continuing tax or fine—one for the education which they cannot in conscience accept, the other for the education which they can. —“ New Zealand Tablet.”