• beg to reply to Miss Weldon's letter (Catholic Herald, October 30).
The " standards imposed by the government inspectorate " axe surely derived from the " obvious tendency to secularise education." To think that conforming lo these standards is compatible with Catholic culture, is not in accordance with the mind of the Church. The present Pope has recalled the dictum of Leo XIII: " It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught be permeated with Christian piety."
The competitive examination system is designed to segregate those who can be absorbed into the professions or the iniquitous industrial system from those who are to be thrown on the scrap heap of unemployment. The organised games system, originally a substitute for religion, is now regarded by industrialists as a valuable means of stifling intellectual Striving to cater for both standards "-those ordained by the Church and by Capitalist economics—is trying to serve both God and Mammon. That is precisely why our schools, " public," secondary and elementary fail to attain the " proper and immediate end of Christian education . . . to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism " (Pius XI).
PAUL A. TAYLOR.
St. John's College, Cambridge.