SCOUTS AND GUIDES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 241, 12 October 1933, Page 8

SCOUTS AND GUIDES.

RELIGIOUS TRAINING.

ARCHBISHOP'S COMMENT,

In his charge to the Diocesan Synod this morning his Grace. Archbishop AveriU said that the diocesan council which reported on youth work had carefully considered the position of the scouts and guides in connection with parochial organisations for the young, and was naturally somewhat perturbed at the practical abolition of "controlled"' troops in New Zealand, which seemed to bo contrary to the spirit and letter of tho "J 033 Scout Handbook." 'The Church's iirst duty is to train her children in tho faith and principles of the Church," said his Grace, "and if scouts and guides are not helped by scouting and guiding to be loyal to their own Church, it would be far better for the Church to adopt or create some other organisation which would produce more satisfactory results. We are anxious to co-operate fully with ' tlie authorities of scouting and guiding in New Zealand so long as they are acting constitutionally, but we have a right to demand that our own children in all that apertains to religion shall continue to be under the guidance and control of the Church. What we claim for ourselves we claim equally for others, and children in open troops should always be encouraged to attend their own Churches. "Tho question of leadership is the crux of the whole matter. There should be a supply of laymen and laywomen who could qualify for leadershiji in both the scouts and the guides. It is unfair to expect the clergy to shoulder the whole burden. Both organisations are excellent in themselves,'and continue to supply a very real need, and I hope that the authorities will encourage the various religious bodies to form their' own troops whenever and wherever possible."