THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1905. 'BY HOOK OR BY CROOK'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 37, 14 September 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1905. 'BY HOOK OR BY CROOK'

§ LIVER CROMWELL is said to have declared that he would get into Watorford by Hook or b*y Crook. But time and circumstance blocked his every effort, and when be rerbired from Ireland Waterfocrd was still tjhe 1 Urbs Intacta '—the City Inviolate. Figures of speech do not commonly go on| all fours ; but there are, we think, two points of awallotgy between the efforts of the roughs almded and smojoth- tanked old Puritan to capture the Munster city, and the .persiaterct attempts that are being made by a section of the Protestant clergy to capture the public schools of Now Zealand for sectarian purposes. They have miajde it clear that they intend— if they can— to get tlbeir peculiar views of Christianity forced or smu'gfgiad into the working hours of the State schools ' by hook or *by croak,' by fair moans or foul, by cajolery and misrepresentation, and, failing these, by intimidation. The end they have in view clearly seems to them to justify a resort to means that are more than questionable. For some time past concerted efforts have been made by sainidry clergjymen throughout Otago to introduce into the public schools t>he evasion known as ' the Nelson plan.' ''It ia a plain and admitted violation of the spirit and inteint of the Education Act, ana is an effort to introduce sectarianism mk> the public schools, as tjhe onters a dwelling, by the -unguarded foackwiim'dow. Again asnd again and yet again— thrice in $uick (succession— recalcitrant School Committees have been coaxed, Mre-ased, entreated, and bullied to permit ministers to preach ' unsectarian ' Protestantism to the children within tlhe hours at present devoted to am overloaded educational programme. Thus far thoy have been foiled in their efforts, 'both by Hook and Crook. It is sdgjtun'caint o>f the spirit of this Subsidiary mo\ement that aU or most of its active leaders are Weary Willies who have never attempted to take ad van t ago of the oipipprtuniities far religious instruction a'fforried by the present Education Act. And their now-born zeal for the souls of the little ones of their flocks is associated, witlh sneers at the good work done for them, outSide of scJiiotol , tvwirs, Vy men like Mr. Duncan vWri)£ht (Diujicdin), who has been laboring consistently and unostentatiously among the children during all those years, while his critics have been wearing their clothes oiut in easy-chairs. We commend to those voluble

loungers the words of one who was himself * worker, and ktaew faow the welWone daily duties of the present life overflow into the world—ana into eternity. :— i' >'<' What shall I do to gain eternal life ? " '''•■Discharge aright The simple dues with which each day is xile t Yea, with thy might. Ere perfect scheme of action thou demise, Will life be fled, While he who acts as conscience cries Shall live, though dead." ' If those bowderi clerics find that they have stored up, during their lon© slumbers, a volt or two of electric energy for the bienefit of the little -ones, let that energy toe allowed its normal path of idischarge, and not be dissipated in memorialising, en-treiating, wheedling, and intimidating School Committees to permit a game of fast-BnwMoose to be played, in the sectarian interest, with the Education Act. Efforts in the same direction will , no douH't, lie made in crther parts, of tJW Colony, ' and Catholics would do well to keep a wary eye upon them.