RELIGIOUS TEACHING SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 37, 12 February 1910, Page 10

RELIGIOUS TEACHING SCHOOLS.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The advocates of religious teaching in schools are evidently going to have another try to persuade the people to try their new plan. This time it is the New South Wales plan, about which, singularly enough, there is just now such a nice little illustration of its working between Cardinal Moran and Mr. Hogue. Our enthusiastic and respected Presbyterian, Rev. EL Gray Dixon, has a pet theory, which he puts forward on any chance occasion, "We do want our children inculcated with a knowledge of the fundamental principles of Christianity." "The lesson books advocated have the of the Roman Catholic Bishop^Anglican Archbishop, and the Presbyterian Moderator, and were introduced from Ireland into the NJS. Wales State Schools." I suppose we laymen are to allow that having the approval of these august personages we are to blindly approve also. Let it be clearly understood, however, that the general public are not so blind as to accept those as representative men on such a serious question. Thousands of Christian people who do not write the magic letters D.D. or even Rev. or Right Rev. father in God, or any other presumptuous title, are yet well informed about the Christian faith and morals. The Anglican Church has just finished another of its wonderful Synods, during which it was made very apparent that in its narrow circle the Bishop and clergy are not of one mind with their own laity about what is fundamental. One thing is plain enough, that the fundamental thing is to keep the emoluments and offices sacred and not to let even the women have the right to express opinions thereon, much less to have the power to veto anything. What Mr. Dixon's opinion about fundamental religion is, we do not exactly know, but it is probably as reasonable and sane an opinion as anyone could give. But what does Bishop Neligan say, and Cardinal Moran, or any of our great ecclesiastics say in Vow Zealand? Whatever opinion these may hold it will remain for the general public to settle this question, and settle it they will to the utter confusion of the clerical advocates who are putting themselves forward as leaders. Some of us have not forgotten the clerical advoca-ey of the Irish Text Book, and which was rwommended to us almost unanimously by such leaders. When this was being introduced the writer attended a large Conference of influential churchmen, when after passing a resolution in its favour, one member ! asked the question, "how many of those present had read the books?" For answer, about half-a-dozen held up hands out of a gathering of 350 to 400 persons. If this is the way that religious books, teaching "fundamental Christianity," are approved, what reliance can be placed on men like that? Now, what are we to think of the '"fundamental" opinion expressed by "a leading R.C. authority," "for the reason that the years which children spend in school practically constitutes the period in which character is formed, no Catholic can accept a purely secular system"? Axe we to infer that the priests and bishops and archbishops ( and other great dignitaries of the church have no great influence iv forming character? Do the homes of the children, whose parents are under the supreme influence of those clergymen, exercise no great influence over their children? Is it believable that because at a day school education is confined to secular instruction that religious education and influence are shut out of the child's life." This is surely very uncomplimentary to the home and the church. I am like i many other Christian people, quite unable to imde.rsta.nd the position of the clericals who find nothing better to do than revivi: these ancient disputes inkier some new form. I cannot understand, why, if they are really sincere about it, why in the name of all that is good and true, they are not content to advocate the use of the Bible —and the best translation of it—without note or comment. T know that some think that would do if the teacher was confined to an "explanation merely of words," but there's the rub —it is in the explanation of words in all our denominational systems. Catholic -and Protestant, that the great differences arise. Clericals little know the damage they do by the equivocal methods adopted about religion—the wonder is that so many faithful people arc to be found. They exist in spite of clericalism, Anglican, Presbyterian, or Catholic. If it were not that so many revere the Bible, and all true religious exposition of it by clergy or laity, Christianity would soon die out.—l am, etc, A LOVER OF THE BIBLE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I have read with much interest the interviews on the above subject recorded in your paper of the Bth inst Being, however, a person possessed of a memory going further back than that of those interviewed, I trust you will allow mc to supplement their statements by a few remarks. The Scripture lessons, about which this controversy has arisen, were compiled and edited by the Rev. James Carlile, a Presbyterian minister, who was one of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland at a very early period of its history. They unquestionably had the imprimatur of his fel-low-Commissioners, Archbishop Whately and Bishop Murray, or they could not have been included in the curriculum then obtaining, and were at first well received by the Roman Catholic clergy. They were unhappily met with a storm of disapprobation by the Irish Protestant clergy, who did everything they could to minimise the efforts being then made for the pacification of Ireland, and thus lost, perhaps for ever, the grand opportunity they might have seized to secure the' respect and affection of their Catholic fellow-countrymen. They loved to feed on sour grapes, and their children's teeth are set on edge. Archbishop Whately was an Englishman, Dr. Carlile a Scotchman ; but their minds were far too broad for the Irish atmosphere they were then inhaling, and they each in turn had to relinquish the system they had endeavoured to build up. Archbishop Whately —like Cardinal Moran—had the misfortune occasionally to speak unadvisedly with his lips, and in defending his position allowed himself to say that these Scripture lessons would have more effect in undermining Romish influence than the rampant declamation the minor clergy used to bring to bear against it. The behests of the Most High are not, however, to be achieved by man's cunning, and Wbately's output had simply the effect of the Scripture lessons being ejected from the syllabus, and the Roman Catholics rendered hostile, rather than friendly, to the system. Bishop Murray was a man of a quiet disposition, and would perhaps have allowed things to remain as they ■were, but his successor was of a very different stamp, and determined to show that if Rome had to go she would die standing. Being myself gs Anglican,, and worshipping tho God of

my fathers after a manner that Cardinal Moran would call heresy, I nevertheless have much sympathy with his views. Religion, to be of any use, must be thoroughly taught in schools, and a religious atmosphere created. Homeopathic, doses, whether imported from New South Wales or manufactured on the spot, are of little use. Canon Henslow Henson, of Westminster, discoursing on this subject says:—"lf moral and religious instruction is to farm an integral element of the education provided in the State schools, that instruction will necessarily be entrusted to the regular teachers commissioned, employed and paid by the State. ... There are very few amateurs who could be admitted as teachers into the State schools without an intolerable derangement of the discipline by their didactic incompetence. . . . Separate and standing outside the moral unity of the system, unrelated either to the personal interest of the regular teachers, or to the common course of education, that religious instruction would be a perfunctory and futile thing, scarcely worth the disturbance of ordinary arrangements which its provision would necessitate." I have nothing but assent to add to this.—l am, etc., J. L. KEALY.