THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 17

THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET

To promote the cause of Religioii and Justice by the ways of Truth and Peace. Leo. XIII, to the N.Z. Tablet

BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS : THE LATEST MOVE

THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1905

NCE upon a time there was a merry gambol at the Lambs' Cflub in London* Maurice Barrymore was there— the idle \isionary f the talker wiKose tongue wagged volubly of grand projects to which he ne\er set his hand f tne man who was happiest in/ verbose indolence. On him Wilton Lackaye w.rote the following mock epitaph— as good in its pungent way as that which was composed for ' Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll ' :—

1 He talked beneath the stars, lie slept beneath the sun ; lie led the life of going to do, And he died witn nothing done.' This mocking epdtaph might be placed on the gravestone of the average cleric of the Bibde-in-schools League. For a generation these good people have ' talked beneath the stars ' a^out the crying ovil of letting the children of their various faiths grow up in comparative ignorance of religion i; in synod and assembly and conference they have been ' going to do ' great things to illuminate the young idea with Knowledge of the world to come ; but they lolled and do/ed and ' slept beneath the sun ' through all "the precious years, while Catholics were up arad doing; and hundreds of them ha\e died, and dreds more will die, ' with nothing done.'

A few weeks' spasm of sporadic activity stirred the dreamers here and there when their flagrant neglect of one of the most sacred duties of the Christian ministry was ex-posed by our Bishops in their second manifesto. Then came" Nepenthe again and closed their eyes, and they ' slept beneath the sun ' with the same ' masterly inactivity ' as before. The recent formation of a ' National Education Defence League ' in Dunedin has waked some of them up again. It has led to a merciless castigation, tlrfough the secular press, of the faithless pjastors who have neglected in so flagrant a way an elementary duty of their calling, sought lo shuffle its unwelcome' burden to the shoulders of State officials, and get it 'done at the cost of the general taxpayer. Here and there the lash of stinging comment has got beneath the outer skin. It has goaded a few— though only a few —of the Bible-in-schools clergy in Otago to gird up their loins and undertake 'the work of imparting religious instruction to the children of their flocks in the public schools. It is better to fulfil one's obligations from the wholesome internal impulse impaitod by a sense of sacred duty than from the outward application of journalistic raw-hide. But it is better that it be done from ijhe less exalted motive than not at all. The appetite often comes (as the French say) with eating ; arid those clergymen of the Bibje-in-schools League who be2;in under the impulse of less perfect mainSp'rihgp of actiotn will,, we hope, soon s.hare with Catholics the joy of doing good to Christ's little ones for Christ's dear sake. In the meantime, their action, considered in itself, is at the same time an example and a

reproach to the armor-clad consciences of their indolent confreres who still ' lead the life of going to do,' and atfe lijkely to die ' with nothing done '—so f*r as personal effort or sacrifice on their part is concerned.

For the determination of those Bible-in-schools clergy — late-jborn though it be— to do their own duty themselves, we have nothing but words of encouragement and commendation. But from the methods on which they propose to set to work, we wholly dissent. In their first manifesto, our Bishops saM :—

' Valuing, as we do the written Word of God, and teaching it in, our schools, we wouia gladly see it brought home to the mind of every child, Catholic and Protestant, in New Zealand. » . We are in sympathy with every effort to impart religious Instruction to non-Catholic children in the State schools after working hours, so long as those of our faith are first permitted to retire without taunt or interference. But we strenuoUsly object to the introduction of Scriptural or other religious lessons or exercises into public schools as parti and parcel of the programme of education.'

Now this is, in its practical effect, what gome of the waked-up clergy of thd ' Referendum ' League are demanding of sundry School Committees here and there. Their method was put in a nutshell some days ago by a clergyman in Dunedin. He says, :—

'I ha\c applied for one half-hour a week to impart Scripture lessons to the children attending the schools, my lessphs tio be given within the ordinary school time. The time required by the Act is four hours per day. The St. Clair school hours are, five, fixed so by the School Committee, as' they have a right to do. I cannot come in wiilhin the four hours without fresh legislation, which we have been trying to get in vain for years, but'l can come ix\ i Bible and all, within the five hours, if the Committee will give me permission, which is within their rights.' The further information was tenderod that this plan is in operation in Nelson— where, we may add on our own account, sectarian feeling is higher ancl (as the last report of the Minister of Education shows) the educational efheiency of the State schools is lower than in any other district in New Zealand Into the question of the legal rights of School Committees we do not propose to onter. We merely ask : Is our ' free?, secular, and compulsory ' Education Act So clumsily drafted that) one of its groundwork provisions can be, in effect, set aside at the mere fiat of a School Committee ? Are they, in 'being allowed to increase the schoolhours by one per day, thereby empowered to introduce into the fifth hour items of instruction which are expressly barred by Act of Pailiament during the other four ? iDoest our Education Act pe^m^t Committees, dining this magical fifth hour, to introduce religious tests into the public schools (in the shape of written protests against particular brands of spiritual instruction), or, failing the imposition or acceptance of such tests, to permit what would amount, in effect, to something like wholesale and systematic proselytism ? For these are, substantially, the alternatives presented to little recusants by, what is now talked of as 'the Nelson plan ' If the Bible-in-sehools clergy can get behind the plain intent of the Act in this way, the sooner it is amended the better it will be for the educational' peace of New Zealand.

It may, of course, be urged, that Catholic, Jowish, or other parents would be under no obligation to send their children to senool except during the fo,ur hours appointed by law. But (1) this obviously does not meet the case of Cartholic teachers and pupil-teachers who would be required, by the terms of their employment, to be present to nrescr\c order, etc., at the proposed courses of sectarian religious instruction. Sundry incidents of public school life in Victor ia,\"tV> which we haye 1 more than once made reference, furnish a bitter experience of the outrage to religious sentiment which Catholic teachers might expect under the proposed new departure of

the Bible-fa-schools clergy in New Zealand.. And the upshot of the ' plan ' would toe this : that Catholic teachers would have no chance of employment by Committees who would permit the proposed scheme of religious instruction within working hours in the schools under their control. In other words, the common adop* tion of ' the Nelson plan ' would inevifcabliy leadfto the general imposition of a religious test in the matter of appointments to schools. As'for the conscience clause, all tbe talk about it is so much gammon and spinach.

(2) Neither is it any comfort to Catholic parents to be told that f they would be under no obligation to send their children to the public schools except during the legal hours. All this supposes that (as In Bajclutfra and. elsewhere) Catholic children would stand up at the beginning or in the middle of the extra hour and leave tine school as naturally and wiith as little interference as at the mid-day recess. 'It takes but little expedience with, or knowledge of, children to be certain that this canaott be done. There are two broad forms of compulsion, physical and moral. In Victoria, under smch a scheme as is proposed for use in New Zealand, the religious' rights of minorities ha*ve been violated with imvunity and in an altogether flagrant way, and the ' May remain ' of the Act of Parliament was over and over again interpreted ' Must remain.' We commend to the ScEftol Committees concerned the following warning words of our Hierarchy :-—

' Even a scrupulous observance of an ideal conscience clause by teachers would still leave Catholic children exposed to a serious measure of maral pressure or compulsion to remain lon Protestant religious instruction — namely, to the jeers and insults of their companions and to the other forms of social martyrdom which children know so well how to inflict on those whom they deem foreign to their modes of thought and action. Catholic pupils in State schools would, in a word, be placed between these two alternatives — proselytism, qr penalties to which no children should be exposed".'

We Catholics have before our eyes the melancholy experience of the wholesale, shameless, and predetermined proselytism that was so long carried ouit, under the sham ' protection ' of a ' conscience clause,' by visiting clergy in the National Schools o£ Ireland We have before us the still later warning example of the State and Industrial Schools of Massachusetts. In view of the new menace to the faith of our little ones, the voice of the Catholic clergy and Catholic parents should be raised, and raised loud enough to be heard, wherever ' the 'Nelson plan ' or any similar arrangement is mooted. Let the Committees formally and properly dismiss the schools 'under their control at any point they wish in the fiflth hour ; let the Catholic children 'be permitted to retire without taunt or interference '; then let the ,Bible-i!n-schooLs clerj^y have their innings. And we "will wish them G>oid-speod in the good work which they have so long and flagrantly neglected. But against such instruction in schools of mixed religion, during school hours— whether .legal or non-legal— the voice of the Catholic body will ever be raised.