THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1905 A STATE SCHOOL 'HISTORY'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 27, 6 July 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1905 A STATE SCHOOL 'HISTORY'

HE rod has fallen in so many and divers ways fW I fli[| upon the shoulders of Catholics that, in a *£r? Jd* way, they fulfil "the droll description gnen by Sauiuel Butler in his ' Hudibraa ' :— ' Some naAe been beaten till they know #O&J*V What wood a cudgel's of by the blow ; * / pr r Some kicked, until they can feel whether » A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather.' One of the coward cudgels that have been used upon our eo-relijgionists in New Zealand is the too frequent use of mixed or public ; funds to place upon the shelves of many of our public libraries the filthy lucubrations of blackguardly adventurers like Ohi'niquy, and samples of brim-stone-and-^reaale No-Popery fiction— from the bigoted pages of Klngsley's ' Weslwand Ho ! ' down through the Hun flummery of anti-nun and anti- Jesuit romance, and onward to the hysterical stuff turned out by Marie Corelli and Joseph Hocking and Michael McCarthy, Esquire. We ha\e e\en had to complain from time to time of the system of prues being utilised— a H nd in schools which we mentioned by 1 name— to sneak doses of the meanest order of No-Popery into chc minSs of Catholic children who had to depend upon the State for tlieir instruction in the primary branches of secular knowledge. And during the past few weeks a controversy on an allied theme hajs, 'been bubbling and flowing like a geyser in the Auckland sccula,r press. It centres around an effort to introduce into the elementary schools under the control of the Auckland Education Board an alleged ' history ' to which Catholics have taken exception, on $ra\e and sufficient grounds.

The book to which we refer is Warner's ' Brief Survey of British History. 1 This text-book is not the work ol a historian, nor of one who has read widely, or deeply, or to much purpose around about the subject on which he presiumed to set up as a teachor of youth. It is-, in fact, the ' scratch ' production of a literary hodman. Exception has been taken to tfae following references to the Catholic religion : (1) In dealing with Queen Mary and her marriage to Philip of S,pain, the writer slays : ' It was bad enough for the country to return to the obedience of the Pope.' (2) In the account of the accession of Queen Elizabeth tfie following passage occuflis * 'We had exchanged a Catholic Queen for a Protestant Queen, and that, so far, was good.' (3)1 The •• Author ' hiais the following further, tilt at ' Rome ' in reference to the fears of Elizabeth as to her

success**: 'Mary, Queen of Scots, wo,uia succeed her, and she, too, was a Roman Catholic, and, what was worse, a woman wno would entangle England with some foreign State.' All -this is, fn good sooth, serious enough to idamn a book that is intended for use in schools o! mixed religion, and under a system of public instruction which is said to ' depend vu the rigid exclusion of sectarianism from the eSucational sphere.' But there stands against the writer of that queer • Survey ' a sti]l graver charge than that of harsh and indiscreet expressions of personal opinion. For, in some respects his book gives an entirely false or misleading presentation of matters of fact affecting Catholics, and it has little motae claim to real impartiality than an electioneering sqfuib. To this phase of the subject we may perhaps, return again. '

In a leading article marked by eminent fairness of mind, the < Auckland Star ' presents the Catholic and common-sense view of the offensive passages already quoted. The writer is dealing with the contention that the expressions referred to ' are meant to reproduce the opinion held by the people of England in the days of Mary and Elizaheth, and that they are simply part and parcel of the historic record.' To tnis error in fact and knock-kneed fallacy in logic the ' Star > makes effective reply ; , a \u° JMJ Ms L the Roman Catholics may reply that rAI-fh 1S K b l S<) ° r n0t ' any ordinar y child into whose SSth thp IS irf boo^ w , as .P ut w <>»ld certainly.be impressed rftLr M a th^ Jt 1S a bad mn Z to be a Roman msv £ n?T' hh ° We r r ™ istaken *«* an impression may be and however far it may be from the wish of the wrifter of Warner's History. to .convey it, .still we iancy that < every unbiassed reader will admit that this would be the natural effect produced in the mind of any average child who came across these passages in the book. For: this reason we consider the choice of the work as- a school text-book unfortunate ; and we think that Koma,n Catholic parents may reasonably ask for the selection of a text-book which records the facts of history without introducing comments upon their religion of a needlessly offensive kind.' &

' A record of fact,' says our Auckland contemporary,' is one thing, insidious comment is quite a/different matter ; and it is on this second count th a t we think a fair case can be made out against Warner's History.' 'Surely,' it adds, 'if Roman Catholics can find any just cause ot complaint on sectarian grounds against the teaching in aur schools, we can hardly expect them to send their children there.' Our Northern contemporary concludes by deprecating the injustice which ' would be inflicted by the introduction or retention in our primary schools of any text-book for children that superfluously and consistently suggests a contemptuous or depreciatory view of any special Churcn or religious creed.'

Cat holies are entitled on grounds of sheer public right to the exclusion of books such as Warner's from the State schools. And so long as we are taxed for the support of the State education system, this right is j erpetual and inalienable, whether the number of Catholic children at this or that public school be nought or one, .nine or nine hundred and ninety-nine.