EDUCATION SYSTEM

New Zealand Tablet, 6 April 1911, Page 615

EDUCATION SYSTEM

CATHOLICS' POSITION. The following letter from the Right Rev. Dr. Cleary, Bishop of Auckland, appeared in the Wellington Evening Post of March 29: Sir, —From the first, this has been a discussion between the advocates of religious education and the Christian supporters of the legalised banishment of religion from the school-preparation of children for the duties and responsibilities of life. The expulsion of religion from its immemorial place in the schools is the most revolutionary change that has taken place in education in the whole course of Christian history. The burden of justification of this revolt falls upon its authors and supporters. Such justification involves the demonstration of the following (among other) pertinent points: (1) By what precise moral right did our legislators banish religion from the school-training of chddren? No answer, no justification, has here been attempted, simply because, on Christian principles, none is possible. (2) If it could be shown that the civil Government has a moral right to exclude religion, penally, from the school, how or why would it not equally follow that it has also a moral right to exclude religion, under penal—if it so —from any and every phase of public and private life in which it has the physical power of interference ? Here, again, the answer ' is—the silence of the tomb. (3) On what Christian or educational principle do the Christian supporters of the secular school demand the exclusion of religion from the school-training of. the child for the duties of life, and at the same time retain religion in the home-training of «he child for the duties of life? Here again, no answer, no justification has been attempted, just because, on Christian principles, such justification is impossible. (4) By what moral right does a professedly ' neutral and impartial State "at least implicitly teach the following (among other) sectarian dogmas: (a) that religion has no necessary or rightful place in school-training; (b) that all Christian'history, teaching, and tradition demanding the essential union of religion with education, are a huge blander, a scholastic heresy; (c) that a majority of legislators have the moral right to ' fire' religion from the schools and keep it out by legal penalties? No justification of these (at least implied) State-school dogmas has been attempted, just because, for believing Christians, no such justification is possible, (5) What moral right has a professedly ' neutral ' and ' impartial ' Government to force these (and other) State dogmas upon the consciences of dissidents, and to compel them to pay tithes for the endowment and propaganda of this sectarian State-school creed? Here, again, no justification is possible on Christian and 'impartial' lines; therefore no justification has been attempted. (6) Can the Christian supporters of the secular system show that the fundamental principles and ideals necessarily involved in that system, are such that believing Christians can accept them? Once more, we have no answer, no justification, because none is possible. ~ In my letter of March 16, I showed, by the facts of the secular system, and by clear, cogent, and unanswered deductions therefrom, that it necessarily involves doctrines and principles and ideals which constitute a genuine form of negative atheism. It was open to you to refute this demonstration, if you could, by proving (a) that I misrepresented the facts of the system, or (b) that I drew wrong inferences therefrom, or (c) that I erred both in fact and in argument. This you have not attempted to do, and my position stands unassailed because it is I believe, unassailable. Here, as in the other issues, I claim judgment by default. Had you made even a show of justifying, on Christian lines, the banishment of religion from its olden place in education, my letters would have been short indeed, my task light and easy—it would have been simply a question of sitting still and smilingly seeinc you prove, up to the hilt, the case against the" Godless school. I am entitled to claim judgment by default on all the T isssues which you ought to have faced' and did not face. In regard to other matters, a journalist of your eminence and standing should not need to be reminded that unsupported assertion and denial do not constitute proof. And the burden of proof is all along upon von I no more like, than do you, the term ' negative atheism ' as applied to a system . which banishes religion from the school. But the truth justice, and necessity of the designation makes it wholesome. And it is high time that well-meaning Christian supporters of that system should begin to realise what is involved and contained in it

You contend (and I agree) that it is not the function of the State to teach religion; and you draw the conclusion that the State is, therefore, entitled or bound to banish religion from the, school. You represent me as accepting this conclusion and .' approving ' the secular system! Yet the only references I made to this curious contention were in your issues of March 16 (last paragraph) and March 22 (paragraph 2); and there, in the most express terms, I protest against your conclusion, and challenge you over and over again to make it good! Amazing as is this misrepresentation of my plain words, I am convinced that it is, like your grave misquotation of Gladstone, the result of inadvertence. I therefore take it that the honorable man's honorable amende will be made by you in due course. —Yours, etc., * HENRY W. CLEARY, D.D.

Bishop of Auckland. March 25. •