The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY,, MARCH 1919. A PROSPECTIVE STEP-MOTHER
COUPLE of weeks ago, in Wellington, a body ♦ ° f men , fore S athe red in order to consider what might be done to lift this country socially and morally from the slough into which it has fallen. As to the fact of that fall, as to the depth of the slough, there seemed to be no matter of doubt whatever in the minds of the speakers: it was admitted regretfully that laxity of morals and scandalous outrages on the most sacred ideals of humanity were too common amongst us. The problem was how to remedy this sad state of affairs. The discussion arrived about as far towards a practical conclusion as all such discussions in this country inevitably do. Mr. Hanan, assuming that air of superior sapience which fits him like a cap and bells, remarked that he had made the portentous discovery that it was time to do something ! t He also made the interesting statement that he did not consider himself a narrow-minded man, and that he did think he was a very worldly man. And, soaring to a yet higher height of inanity, he expressed the opinion of his non-narrow worldly mind to the effect that his schools might be called upon to step in and take the place of the parents with regard to the children. Mr. Hanan in loco 'parentis ! It is not recorded whether the members of the deputation swooned or no: if they did not they had got over the effects of the “Niagara.” But to think of the “system" which is the darling of every P.P.A. ranter in the Dominion, which has the support of every Jew and atheist, which keeps New Zealand fifty years behind the "progressive countries of the world in educational i>uci'H ll> L'liiiiiv ui uxidi;, of Mr. Hanan, who is symbolical of it, in loco parentis, or even as a sort of fostermother or dry nurse, must have taken away the breath of the members of that historic gathering: at any rate they did not speak much after Mr. Hanan. * If some philanthropic person would capture the Minister of' Education and take him out to Soames Island for a week's retreat something might be done
towards saving him. If he meditated three times every day for the week on the elementary eternal truths which any Catholic school-boy could teach him what a difference it would make in his non-narrow and worldly mind. ‘ How much on-narrower and how much less worldly it would be when it had been hammered into Mr. Hanan that there is a God above Who will judge us all. Ministers of Education included; that it will not profit a man anything to gain scholarships if he lose his immortal soul; that the fear of God is'the" beginning •of wisdom and a far better control of conduct than platitudes of pretentious poseurs. If he made a start there we might actually succeed in getting him. to realise that there are persons in the world who are ten thousand times * more broad-minded than he, who are spiritual-minded as well as being men of the world, whose vision is not confined to their own interests, who have forgotten more about education than he will ever learn, who have found out for themselves that unless education is based on such elementary principles of Christianity as we have mentioned, schools and Ministers of Education become stumbling-blocks and pitfalls to a people; who know—and is it hopeless to hope that he will ever come to know ?that only when the characters of the young are formed upon such principles can there be any sure warranty for expecting an improvement in the moral and social life of the country. Principles and character! Give our Minister a pipe and set him to roam around the rocks where the voice of the eternal sea may shut out the raucous applause of his P.P.A. friends and remind him that there are bigger things at stake than bowing and smiling to a group of No-Popery experts who assure him that he is the man of the day and that his “system” has their blessing. Perhaps there he might realise that a principle is not a thing begotten of abstract platitudes about honor and duty, about culture and efficiency, and that the most unprincipled scoundrel could rave about such things as eloquently as a saint. A principle is something deep and vital; something that must be burned into the soul so. as to become part of it, a secret spring of action, a controlling force, a headline of conduct. Only by impressing principles on the minds of the young can character be moulded : by right Christian principles, Christian character; and by wrong material principles, character that is not Christian, whatever else it may be. A character formed on the principles of the Ten Commandments will always be a good characterin as far as those principles mould it; a character formed on the theory that Almighty God, and religion, and supernatural motives for being chaste and truthful and honest are worth so little that Mr. Hanan has no room for him in his “system” is likely to be the sort , of character that will cause men to come together and wonder what may be done to stop the rot. * 4 ■ Yes, having found out at fifty-nine minutes past the eleventh hour that things are very bad, socially and morally, Mr. Hanan proposes to come in in loro parentis as a remedy. Now Mr. Hanan can no more take the place of parents than he can make people believe that he is doing any good for the country in his own place. God gave to parents the right and the obligation to see to the education of their children, and if Mr. Hanan only saw to it that his schools were calculated to help parents instead of hindering them we should have more reason to respect him and to think there was something in his non-narrow and worldly mind. But Mr. Hanan is not going to usurp the rights of parents unless the parents of the Dominion are greater fools than we take them to be. When the schools are reformed, and when they have begun to teach children that religion and the law of God deserve more respect' than money-making, they will react on the homes and in' time improve them; at present whatever irreligious tendency is among the elders is intensified by the fact that the wiseacres, the non-narrow-minded worldly men in office, preach by their practice that the control of sound religious education is not worth bothering about, that it is less important than
knowing where Timbuctoo or Chemulpho is. And if 3Mr. Hanan wants to know where to begin let him begin with himself ; let him open . his eyes and see that every man to whom social and religious life are dear has made up his mind that the cause of the laxity of moral fibre and the anarchical tendencies so manifest in the Dominion is to be found in those very schools about which the Minister of Education receives so many compliments from so, many doubtful judges. . The ‘'system may give a youth a thin veneer of culture it may teach how to attain rectitude in parting the hair, or cleanliness in the care of the teeth but it can never give the key to that rectitude of the heart and that cleanness of soul without which platitudes and premiums are as worthless as dust. We do not want, young people who can “Lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of their complicated state of mind, While meaning doesn’t matter if its only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.” We want men and women who live by the law of the Gospel and who know in their humility that they need God’s help to enable them to be true to ideals which any man can preach about. Mr. Hanan’s application for a job in loco 'parentis is declined; when stepmothers, who are proverbially neglectful of the interests of children, are wanted let him apply. In olden days one of the Pharaohs had a Minister called Joseph; and when people came to him for help or sound advice he told them, “Go to Joseph.” We have our Minister, but for advice or help we would send no man to him; and, instead of saying as Pharaoh used to say, we would far rather say, “Go, Joseph, and go quickly.”
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New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1919, Page 25
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1,426The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY,, MARCH 1919. A PROSPECTIVE STEP-MOTHER New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1919, Page 25
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