THE COMING COLONIAL EDUCATION BILL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 117, 23 July 1875, Page 13

THE COMING COLONIAL EDUCATION BILL.

It will be news to many that the General Government, as you say in your last issue, intend to give the Colony a new Education Bill, in which the claims of denominational schools to Government aid are to be recognised. You add that you have no faith in the honesty of the General Government in this matter. I like not that word. The present General Government is just as honest as any of its predecessors. It is not the Government but the constituency who are to blame for' the existence of the present system of godless ptiblic education. A popular Government like ours seldom or never acts on the principle of abstract, justice, or the eternal fitness of things. They live on popularity. If they have it not, they die. Whatever a popular majority wills the Government will do, be it a good thing or a bad thing in itself. The people of England have a natural dislike to a purely secular education, and to education rates. Tho consequence is the British Parliament gives, a hearty support to religious schools, though to moot the wishes o£ many they have also established "Board

Schools " as they aro culled, supported by a local rate, and in which no religion is taught. In this colony the various Provincial Governments have established Board Schools alone, and High Schools, from which all re* ligiouß teaching is excluded, or professedly excluded. They have hitherto persistently refused to aid denominational schools. Now, this must be because a numerical majority of the people are with this state of things or because they have not the courage to oppose it. A very large proportion of the people, probably a majority of them — Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Wesleyans — entertain a very decided aversion to the present godless system of Government educacation, and consider the " Board Schools " as no fit place for their children. The Catholics alone have had the pluck and manliness to say so openly. The people of other denominations, for some reason or another, have not yet openly protested against the secular schools, and Government naturally are averse to establish the religious system —in the absence of any extensive public demonstration in its favor. The affair, then, is at the disposal of the people, and you should not denounce the dishonesty of the Government. Let the people do their duty, avow their wish for a religious system of education, such as that established! by the Imperial Parliament, and the thing is done. The Government are the servants of the people— rather an offensive ■way of putting it, but so it is. Let the Catholics everywhere unite to support candidates in favor of religious education, They then may do as they did in Auckland, carry the day in concert with others. They were the means of securing the election of the late John Williamson as Superintendent, because he gave out that he was in favour of religious education in Government schools. But unhappily they were betrayed, and he sanctioned a bill establishing purely secular schools alone, or at least threw the odium of doing so on the Governor, to the great mortification and disgust of his Catholic friends and supporters. The only excuse for him is that he had the will but not the power to redeem his promise or implied pledge. He had a secularist Council to deal with, and left his Catholic friends in the lurch accordingly, his right hand man, Mr. Sheehan, being a Catholic and leader o£ the secularists, unhappily. Mr. Sheehan, however, at the close of the education debate in the Provincial Council, was forced with a very bad grace to avow his belief that the denominations had strong, and it is presumed he meant just, claims on Govt. for aid to their schools. Mr. Yogel — I beg pardon, Sir Julius I Vogel — and Dr. Pollen may now have some reason to concur with Mr. J. Sheehan in that opinion. We shall see. One thing is sursthat they will go with the religious party if they have reaßon to suspect they are the strongest, not otherwise. " Down with the weak, up with the strong," is their motto — throw justice to the wind. It is the motto of all parliamentary parties. Were the snbject not so serious it is ludicrous to see the reluctance and terror with which Protestant leaders approach this eubject. They would, and they •would not have G-ovt. aid to their schools. If they got it " those terrible Papists would come in for a share too, and they might get the lion's share, they are so zealous in establishing schools, and conduct them so successfully. We would rather want help than that the 'Papists ' should get it." Such, I suspect, is the feeling — not a very amiable one — of otir Protestant fellow electors, or many of them, at leait, among the " unco gude "in Dunedin. The Scotch are a noble race, and bravely they stand up for the Bible and againßt the Papists. Their natural sense of justice ia sadly perverted by their bigotry and greed together. Obsehyee. Auckland, 6th July.