Catholic Education in the Colonies

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 28, 9 July 1903, Page 29

Catholic Education in the Colonies

rr «i ; *' BB ' Sar £ ant > Director of Education in the li ansraal, m a letter published in a recent issue of the London Times,' and written from the Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall, pays a remarkable tribute to tlie work of the Catholic Church as an educator in the colonies, and to the adaptability of the religious Orders to new conditions and pioneer life. Inter alia, Mr Sargant says : — This work was not, as a rule, accomplished through the instrumentality of her local ecclesiastical organisttion, but by means of colonising settlements of men and £ int? *? °- n( ? °r, othec of the religious, Orders of the Church, or technically by the regulars and not by the seculars Each . settlement established, maintained, and controlled one or more educational institutions, and showed m its work all possible marks of vitality, including the iaculties of self-preservation, adaptability toenvironment, and reproductive growth. * * ' It was during a visit to Rhodesia, nearly five years ago, that I first had the opportunity of observing at t"y thrre^us^rdeV 116 occu P ati °* « » «"»" Can Establish Flourishing Schools. • ' Had the first white settlers been consulted, they would have, no doubt, expressed their preference for an agency r, H^ < ?+? iey J Were more fa miliar, but when K they lound. that the education offered by the regulars to their children was superior to that which under such conditions they could reasonably have expected, and when no attempt was made to introduce doctrinal teaching or to proselytise, their gratitude was sincere, and found its expression in pecuniary assistance to the enlargement of the schools In the various Australian colonies through I\' hl f h^ afterwards travelled it became evident to me tiiat though, as the population increased, Government took up the chief burden of the provision of schools, and though other Churches sometimes succeeded in the establishment of successful non-Government institutions, the Catholic schools still held their own, not only bY reason of priority of foundation, but also in consequence ot the guarantee which the stability of the religious communities controlling them offered for the permanence of the standard of the instruction supplied. It was not, howover, until I had begun > to investigate the conditions of education m Canada that I became fully aware of the powers of adaptation of these communities to local surroundings or of the fecundity which they exhibit. One instance must suffice. It is of a religiov, Order which in France devotes itself to other ' good works ' as well as to education. A community professing this rule settled near New York and adapted itself to the local demand for school instruction. In the course of time it became the mother of numerous religious houses devoted to education, which spread through the States of the i on - „ One stray daughter began life in Nova Scotia, and before long descendants of the third generation in the New World were founding schools -throughout the far western provinces of Canada. The number of the religious of this Order alone employed in teaching at the time of my visit was about 2500 in the United States and about 250 in Canada. This vigor of school colonisation on the part of the regulars extends over secondary as well as primary education. Boarding - schools for boys as well as girls, often planned to accommodate twice as many scholars as are received djuring the first lew years, testify to the manner in which Rome Builds for the Future. "~ But they do not supply for our colonial youth the type ol education which is characteristic of English public schools and colleges. Even the least successful imitation of such a school established by other Church agencies breathes the spirit of belief in the high destiny of England and the British race. In the corresponding schools established through the intervention of the Roman religious Orders it is inevitable that the thoughts of the teaching fraternity should turn to the mission of another Empire than that of England, and that, without any antagonism to ofiir rule, they should unconsciously lead their pupils to believe that, as in past aces, Rome stands at the centre and Great Britain on the verge of the. power and thought of Europe. This view is apt to be -associated with a tendency to measure the relative importance of Fngland and her colonies in accordance with their physical extent. 'What is your boys' idea of Great Britain ? ' 1 asked, on parting with the guide who had accompanied me over one of the great Catholic school of Australia. 'An island that could be dropped into Port Fhilip ' was the characteristically Irish rejoinder. The problem which thus presents itself for solution is to find educational instrument combining the supremely effective organisation of the Roman Church with unwavering loyalty to English ideals of empire