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PERTH, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1944.
English Catholics Will Fight to Last Ditch Over Education Issue White Paper Denies Complete Liberty of Conscience to Catholics citizens who are to have their schools
cannot accept such teaching are pep-
for their children entirely at alised financially. conscience to are to To exercise freedom the State. expense *Huge and Incalculable Financial theprovided definthe extent the substitution penalised because we cannot ite religious instruction for indefinite, scientiously accept an agreed syllabus It privilege. not to enjoy Why should religious instruction. Burden to be Imposed fundamental merely to exercise agreed syllabus those who accept of
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Bishops Set Out Principles For Settlement of Education Question
be placed in a privileged pOsition? As Sir Michael Sadler wrote seventeen years ago: "It is difficult to see why efficient elementary every type of school should not share alike in the fund which Parliament votes for education out of taxes, and in the funds in aid of education which local authorities vote from the rates. Denominational education is not something unhealthy which merits a fine." We are assured that it is difficult to satisfy all sections of the community,
of
of
is
a
a The exercise of -this right
is right. conceded unconditionally to thbse who It choose to, use provided schools. should be conceded without penalty to those who cannot conscientiously send their children to provided school's or 100 per cent. grant-aided agreed -sylla-
bus schools. The third principle concerns the partners in the education field. In law, as our done Not only have we grieved? it stands at present, the necessity or share, as the White Paper admits, as otherwise of a school has to be deterpioneers of education, as protagonists mined by the interests of secular inBishops surveyed the position. intimat- of Christian teaching, and in spending and that the White Paper represents a struction, the economy of the rates and schools, of provision ing their approval of somr of the large sums on the laudable attempt to do so. We give the wishes of the parents as to the serOf these proposals and criticising others. They but we have continued in these the President and the Board of Edu- education of their children. condemned the Governments denial of vices where others have given up the cation credit for their good intentions, three, the wishes of the parents, which only the We are made to us, though was such a prominent feature of the freedom of conscience with its conse- unequal struggle. last but the proposals easements of our pre- Education Act of 1921, has always been quential penalising of the Catholic single denomination which in the containing many resisted has successfully years forty body. sent burden, are plainly beyond our held of paramount importance. For this last consideration there is It would be imThe whole Pastoral is an admirable and overcome the policy of attrition financial resources. huntwo added have we statement of Catholic views on educa- In that time moral on our part to undertake a fin- now substituted the wishes of the list withour to schoois and eight dred summarised in It is given here tion. ancial obligation which we know we Local Education Authority, the wishes out cost to the public funds, whilst cannot fill. Already in preserving our of the National Union of Teachers, and form and should be studied by the the wishes of the Free Churches. The Catholics of Australia who, too, like 3,894 schools of other denominations schools we have mortgaged the resourLocal Education Authority is an electheir brethren in England,have, in edu- have gone out of existence and their ces of posterity. and we cannot enter been have 1,648,000 numbering conscipupils for suffer to reckless tive body which has to carry out the a matters, of cational into further commitments absorbed in Council schools. ence. character. We say reckless because law; it has no special prerogative to Recently we have seen a good deal of In the White Paper no attempt has we are asked to pay a huge but incal- determine what the law should be. The We are asked in effect Firee Churches have all that they are public interest focussed upon the pro- been made to satisfy our just claims culable sum. entitled to in the educational sphere in posals for educational reconstruction as or, on the other hand, even to ques- to hand over a blank cheque. the provided schools. and now, in addiset out in the White Paper which was tion their justness. In the debate in Principles. Primary Three Commons in the many one-time voluntary submitted to the House of the House of Commons on the White Putting political considerations aside tion, would We not which will accept agreed-syllahave schools pastoral). the "I in July (says Paper the President said: to the main issue. there irrelevant as bus teaching and 100 per cent. aid. like to say at the outset that Catholics been able to concede the full demands are three primary factors or principles welcome the general constructive pro- of those who desire complete liberty of which should inspire any settlement of The Teachers' Status. As a composals in the document. We are given to under- the Education Question. First, wherconscience." M for the National Union of Teachmunity we have always paid special at- stand that he has yielded -to the pres- ever there exists a body of parents of ers, it is to be borne in mind that tention to education and, throughout sure of Local Education Authorities, the same religious denomination, with teachers are the servants, not the masthe ages, learning has always been fos- the Free Churches. and the National children sufficient in numbers to oc- ters, of the community. Schools are tered by the Church, Catholicity and Union of Teachers, and therefore lib- cupy a school building, such a school not provided for the employment of education have -walked hand in hand erty of conscience is to have severe fin- should be built, fully maintained and teachers but for the education of chilWe regard education not only as a ancial penalties attached to it. What staged by the right type of teacher at dren. Teachers must be selected to but nation, of the To give vital force in the life justification is offered for this differen- the public expense and the denomina- fit the needs of the schools. schools? denominational as a most important influence in the tiation against of the school should he them the power of dictating what type Upon it de- We are told that owing to the bad his- tional character up. of decidlife of the individual. of set and be school shall preserved. pend to a very large extent the forma- tory of elementary education in this The second principle is that in order ing the educational policy of the corns the character, and to out be meted personality tion of country justice can Triunity is to deny 'democratic printo offer equal educational opportunity development of initiative and judg- us only by stages, and since the pro- to all, such opportunity must be ac- ciple and to substitute a bureaucratic ment, and the cultivation of those posed Bill is a decided advance on ceptable to the recipient. To offer regime. qualities which make for sound citizen- anything previously accorded to us, we opportunity on conditions known to be Catholics are putting 100 per cent. We believe that our children ought to accept it with gratitude in the unacceptable is really to deny opporship. into the war effort and are to receive Tley are only is 50 per cent. in return. should be given every opportunity of hope of further favours to come. teaching -syllabus Agreed tunity. developing all the faculties with which acceptable to the majority, but it is in the Navy, Army, Air Force, and on Burden. An Impossible naturParents them. God has endowed who can the industrial front at home, shoulder Justice by instalments, it would ap- useless to Catholic's. Those teaching to shoulder with their non-Catl-nlic felally want their children to be equipped conscientiously accept, such for. We hope can we most the is pear, this in to make the best of themselves (Continued on Back Cover.) are given 100 per cent aid: those who pay rates and taxes enually with those life and the next. No Justification Offend. Is it any wonder that me feel
The intentions of the British Government as disclosed in the White Paper on Education have been rejected by In a Joint the English Hierarchy. Pastoral issued before Christmas the
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