The Rev. Father Chastagnoa on Education.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2783, 15 January 1878, Page 2

The Rev. Father Chastagnoa on Education.

At tbo eleTen o'clock Mass the Key. Father Chastaguon announced that the schools would be re-opened on Monday, and he took that opportunity to make a few remarks on the new Education Act. He said that the new Act had been passed against; the earnest protest of all the Catholics of this Colony, and other bodies, and that therefore the Catholics could not tnke any act or part in the administration of suck au Act. He said that Catholics should not allow themselves to be placed on committees of schools, and that they should make themselves conspicuous by their absence at the election of those committees. He then went on denouncing the injustice of the Act. He said, ♦' You are tax-payers, and you hare a right to yoav returns. You are parents

and guardians, and you have as good a righ and as deep an interest to think fo"* ycur children and yourselves as those. gentlemen who are making tho laws of this Colony. You have as good a right as they have to consider religious education as good an object for' State support as irreligious or godless education. It is the duty of the religious people of every denomination to cry out and say, Gentlemen, give us according to our numbers, and according to our taxes, our proportion of the funds set apart for education. You can examine, dismiss our teachers, test our results as much as you like, but Rive us that share of public money which is our own, and then we will be content, but not till then. We are ratepayers, we are citizens, and we are freemeu, and as such we have a right to atk that justice may be done to us." Then the rev. gentleman went on, quoting the words of a great philosopher, Leibnotz, who said that there was only one way of reforming mankind, nnd it would be by a Christian education. He further said: " Our Lord says iv the Gospel, let the little children come to me; our Saviour says that none should hinder tho little ones from coming to him. Why then should amongst Christian.people re-' ligion be driven from school ?" He exhorted the parents to watch carefully over the education of their children, to send them to a Christian school, to make them religious that they may be a benefit to society, and do them honor. Instil, he said, religion into their tender minds, for you will hare to answer to God for their souls.