A major religious minority

Otago Daily Times

08-05-2025

For the Roman Catholic hierarchy visiting Dunedin to celebrate the Jubilee of their training college at Mosgiel everybody has had a kindly feeling. Hopelessly Protestant though we be, no ungracious word has escaped our lips. We have been on our good behaviour, press and public alike. A venerable archbishop and a lengthy retinue of bishops and priests, quaint representatives of the largest communion in Christendom, were
impressive. Hierarchy, meaning government by priests, is not to our Protestant liking, name or thing. But the hierarchs themselves were not shy of the word, as their speeches show; and if the people they govern prefer government in that form, who shall say them nay? The Roman Catholics in New Zealand, though the Presbyterians outnumber them by more than two to one, and the Anglicans by perhaps three to one, are not
a feeble folk. Look at their schools! They pay taxes like the rest of us, and, in paying taxes, they, like the rest of us, maintain the public schools. Yet in addition they provide and maintain schools of their own. — by 'Civis' Mum's the word
A number of years ago Miss Jarvis, of Philadelphia, felt the need of a day specially to remember mother. That her dreams were not mere sentimental bubbles is borne out by the fact that to-day the second Sunday in May is set apart by the Congress of the United States as "mother's day." Throughout the war men in the army were glad to remember this special observance, many letters of cheer being written to mother on the
second Sunday in May. This day has now a place of its own the world over, and in Dunedin it will be specially celebrated in the churches, in the Salvation Army and the YMCA. Police give drivers a hand
At the meeting of the Otago Motor Club next Tuesday a sergeant and two constables will be present to give a demonstration of the traffic signals given by the police, and also of the signals that they expect motorists to give under varying circumstances. At present motorists do not by their signals give adequate information of the direction in which they wish to proceed, and at times the instructions given by the police may be
misconstrued by drivers. Unsuitable reading
Embodied in the report of the rector of the Balclutha District High School to the committee was the following paragraph, which is of more than local interest: "The class libraries are now ready, and will be given out next week. In this connection I should be grateful if the committee would ask for the co-operation of the parents in an endeavour to stamp out in this district the reading by the pupils of both departments of a
cheap and pernicious form of so-called literature sold, I believe, at fourpence per copy, and even lent round at a penny per book. I undertook the unpleasant task of wading through a few of these books. From a literary point of view they do nothing but harm to the pupils' study of English, while the characters held up as heroes are not of the type that we should like to have our boys and girls become. One member of the committee
stated that these books were interfering with the home lessons of the pupils in some cases. It was decided to ask parents to use their influence in the matter with a view to combating the trouble." — ODT , 9.5.1925 (compiled by Peter Dowden)