A Ban Upon Religion

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 21, 31 May 1923, Page 13

A Ban Upon Religion

EDUCATION IN THE SIX COUNTIES OF NORTHERN IRELAND. Cardinal Logue presided at a meeting of the Bishops of the Six Counties in Armagh on Tuesday (says the Irish Catholic for March 31), and an important statement was subsequently issued regarding the grave position of Catholic education in the Six Counties as a consequence of the proposed measure lately introduced in the Belfast Parliament. The statement declares that to put religion out of the school day in the most plastic years of the child is a retrograde step, even from the point of view of the State’s own interest. RIGHTS OF THE CHILD. The following statement was issued after the Bishops’ meeting: “In every country where the population is made up of different religious denominations the question of religious education in the schools is a difficult one for the State. The difficulty has its origin in the special importance which is rightly attached to the religious training of the young; and the trouble is not to be got over by banishing from the school curriculum the most valuable of all school subjects. Religious education imparts Christian knowledge and develops Christian feeling. It is the most precious education the child can receive because its object is to fill the mind with Divine Truth and to form the character after the model of our Divine Lord Himself. A Retrograde Step. “To put religion out of the school day for which the State is concerned in the most plastic years of the child is a retrograde step even from the point of view of the State’s own interest. Ireland, with whatever failings in these times, is an intensely Christian country, and it should be the purpose of any scheme of primary education to encourage the religious education as well as the literary and moral instruction of the children. “If Catholic chlidren are compelled to attend school the religious education there should be in accord with Catholic convictions. “The code of the National Board, trying as it now and then was to the various religious denominations, did not discard religious education from its purposes. It opens by saying that the system of national education is to afford combined literary and separate religious instruction. “Though the system was avowedly undenominational, religious instruction at least came within school hours, and grants for new schools were more readily made when the means of religious instruction were not attainable by the children of a particular denomination at a national school set a reasonable distance from their homes. Six-County Proposals. “What the Education Bill now before the Parliament of Northern Ireland proposed to do for 6 religious instruction in elementary schools is to afford opportunities, if they be desired, for such education in a school outside obligatory hours. Two very different classes of schools,, however, are contemplated in the Bill and they are very differently treated as regards almost everything that affects the life and work of the school. These are (a) Provided schools and (b) the voluntary schools. “The schools which the Bill favors are the Provided schools, to which ‘ transferred ’ schools are analogous. Everything is provided out of the rates and taxes for a Provided school, whether buildings or equipment or upkeep, or heating or requisites of any kind. Such schools are under • Education Authorities,’ Education Committees,’ and ‘ School Committees ’ acting in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, but with their own statutory rights secured to the Education Authority, the Education Committee, and the School Committee over each school. Education Authorities. “The County Council or Borough Council as the local education authority comes first in importance, and the Committees are formed so as to reflect the feelings and views of the Local Government bodies in the district; only slightly affected by the nominations of the Minister. These education authorities and committees between them make appointments and control in every respect the schools that are provided or transferred. •

“Schools which comply with the requirements of the Ministry in regard to public elementary education, but , which are not provided by the local education authority or transferred to it,. are called . Voluntary Schools in the - Bill for these the Bill proposes many disabilities. “Any one of our schools which continues as now under the management of the parish priest may not be allowed even half the outlay under lighting, heating, and cleansing unless the estimates be approved by the local education authority, and it depends on the goodwill of that authority also whether requisites are provided for the children in * the schools. There is no building grant and nothing for equipment or upkeep, yet Catholics will have to contribute like everyone else their full share of the rates and taxes that are to meet the whole expenditure under the Bill. Other Disabilities. “There is no aid to build or equip a new voluntary school, no chance of obtaining even a share of the expenditure on renewals and general upkeep in an existing school unless a special school committee is donned to control the school, appoint the teacher, and direct religious education, this committee to be composed as to two-thirds of its members by representatives of managers and trustees, and as to the remaining one-third, by the representatives of the local education authority. Even with such a committee the proportion of aid to build or equip remains uncertain, and the contribution r - the Education authority to upkeep or heating does not exceed half the estimated outlay. “It- is necessary to add that, under the arrangements to be made as regards training ami certificates which remain with the Ministry, it would be quite an easy matter to cut off the supply of young teachers for convent or even ordinary elementary schools. “Certainly, if recent legislation abolishing proportional representation and rearranging the Local Government Board areas, thereby ousting Catholics from the representation, is to be taken as an indication of what we may expect the outlook is of the gravest character for our people. Stricken with Poverty. “The provided -schools are impossible for our children. Schools managed as at present are to be stricken with poverty if not menaced in other ways, and the little to be gained by forming school committees on English model in an Ulster environment may he dearly bought. Perhaps, ere long, it may turn out not to be altogether wise to treat Catholics in this way under a Government where they form one-third of the population, and in a country where they are the vast majority. “Two important reforms the Bill attempts on great lines; they concern afflicted children and the health of scholars. These observations we deem it a duty to make on a preliminary consideration of the proposed measure. We pass to say a word on the training question. For ns the formation of young Catholic teachers in colleges that are both Catholic and residential is a vital matter. The Catholics of Ulster, in common with the Catholics of the rest of the country, made heavy sacrifices to provide a Catholic training college long before the Government of the time was moved to admit the justice of their claim and make grants to several training colleges. Assuredly there should be an agreement now to use to the utmost the existing training colleges for the benefit of the whole country. Six-County Training. It is reported, however, that the only training that will be recognised in Northern Ireland is training at a University for which the candidates are not prepared by a course of secondary education, where the surroundings, besides not being at all suited to form the teacher for liis work, are more objectionable from the religious point of view than those that existed in connection with the Marlborough St. College. Young teachers trained in that institution were not accepted for schools under Catholic management, and candidates hurried through a bit of a University course without the safeguard of a Catholic residential college in an institution where any or no religion is equally welcome, we must consider still less qualified to undertake the sacred duty of teaching' our children in the elementary schools. ■ Impossible Proposal. “We cannot think of employing teachers trained in this haphazard way, apart from residence in a Catholic College in Catholic schools for which we arc responsible.

By all means it is right that young teachers of special ability should have facilities for graduation. “(Signed), “ * Michael Card. Logub, Archbishop of "Armagh, Primate of All Ireland. “ * Patrick, Archbishop of Attalia. > “ Bishop of Derry, . “ •J* Patrick, Bishop of Clogher. - “ ►I" Patrick, Bishop of Kilmore. “ "I" Joseph, Bishop of Down and Connor. “ "I* Edward, Bishop of Dromore.” <X>-<>