THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PETITION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 185, 24 August 1871, Page 5

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PETITION.

(To tlw Editor.)

Sir, — Ifc is proposed, as you are aware, by our Roman Catholic fellow citizens to petition the General Assembly to grant them a fair proportion of the money at present voted in support of education, and with a view to attaining this object people connected with that denomination are now busily engaged in canvassing the various up country districts.

With this highly proper mode of trying to obtain redress for an alleged grievance I have no fault to find, but I do think that when they have the bad taste to ask members of Protestant denominations to sign a petition, having for its objecst the destruction of our present admirable educational system, it is high time that the matter should be made public It is within my knowledge that the signatures of people not belonging to the Roman O.itholie Church have been obtained to the petition from individuals having no symp.ithy with its doctrines or practices, but having a friendly regard for many members of thab Church as individuals and good citizens. The signatures were obtained, in fact, not from people im-^ pressed with the necessity of having such changes as are indicated in the petition, but from individuals who had ' not studied the bearings of the subject, and good-naturedly thought that if it pleased the canvassers their Protestant signatures would not be much here or there.

ITow there has been a good deal of wordy warfare over the matter already, but I have not yet seen anybody advert to the melancholy position the granting of the prayer of this petition would have on the status of ail tip-country schools. It is to be presumed that all the other denominations would be placed on the same footing as the Roman Catholics, each receiving its quota of the educational fund ; for it would be simply ridiculous to suppose that the Government could legislate for them solely.

To illustrate what I mean, take the case of a school with which I am acquainted. There are 45 pupils belonging to the following denominations (the figures are approximate) :—Presbyterians, 16 5 10 ; Ohm-cli of .England, 11 ; Roman Catholic, 8. The school is taught by a gentleman possessed of high qualifications, who was specially trained for the profession of teacher, and gives great satisfaction in his present position. He receives from the Government £100 in addition to certain fees, &c, from the local committee. Well, just imagine the denorniuational system put in foi'ce in tin's instance. The present teacher would be compelled to look elsewhere for employment, and the £100 which he received under^ the old system from the Government would be apportioned among the various religious bodies. Of what use would it be to them even when supplemented by their own efforts? Absolutaly none ; for not one of them could afford to support a duly qualified teacher, and the result; would be a repetition of what was a common occurrence in England not a hundred years ago. To men and women who are absolutely incipable of any other employment would be entrusted the education (so called) of the rising generation. We should have the class of teachers revived common in Ireland at a much later period, and denominated hedge-schoolmasters ; or, to take an illustration from Scotland, we should hive the poor dominie eking out a wretched subsistence on fees talcing the form of pecks of oatmeal and potatoes, and all this with results as regard the intelligence of the people of a kind to alarm the least apprehensive.

Let justice be done to all denominations l>y establishing a system of purely secular education, not as a thing itself desirable, but as being the least of two great evils. — lam, &c,

Liberal.