CATHOLIC CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1922, Page 2

CATHOLIC CHILDREN.

POSITION REGARDING SCHOLARSHIPS. . A MINISTERIAL STATEMENT. Speaking at the Irish national concert in Dunedin on St. Patrick’s Day, Bishop Whyte said the funds accruing from that concert were going to be used to enable children in the Catholic schools who had won scholarships, and who were not allowed to accept them in the State schools, to take them out in their own schools. The New Zealand Government apparently did not want these brilliant children of the present or at any future time, and the federation had therefore decided that the efforts of the brothers and sisters who had educated these young folk should not go for naught. Hence it had decided to provide the necessary funds for the scholarships. This statement has been brought under the notice of the Minister for Education (the Hon. C. J. Parr), who remarked that it was clearly a perversion of the facts. As the law stood, said the Minister, any Catholic child who won a scholarship had the same right as a child of any other religion to take up the scholarship in a State secondary school.. If, as was sometimes the case, a child of the Catholic religion was not allowed by its parents to take the scholarship in a State school the Education Department could not be blamed. It was certainly incorrect under such circumstances to say that the New Zealand Government “did not want these brilliant children.” As a matter of facti said Mr. Parr, he would be only Joo pleased to see them taking up scholarships in the State schools. The State offered free scholarships to Catholic in common with other children, and it was not its fault if such scholarships were not taken up. —Dominion.