Blenheim

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5, 4 February 1909, Page 179

Blenheim

A Press Association message from Blenheim states that the school erected in memory of the lateTTather Lewis was opened on Sunday 'afternoon by his Grace Aychbishop Bedwood, the Mayor and the Chairman of the "EJdacation Board also attending the ceremony .officially . There was a large public attendance^ and, about £60 was collected, enabling Father Bolley to announce that the school, which cost about £800, was being opened free of debt. At a service in the church prior to tlfe inauguration proceedings, the 1 Archbishop preached a powerful sermon on the Catholic education system, He ciaime'd that the system was the only perfect one in the Dominion, in that it provided for religious training as well as the equipment of boys and girls to be effective members of a civil society "based on Christian principles. Speaking of the sacrifices made by Catholics on behalf of their idea of education, lie said thab although only one-seventh of the population, they spent eveiy year about £40,000, and in twenty-five years they had saved the taxpayers of New Zealand £1,000,000.