BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1935, Page 10

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

FACILITIES FOR TEACHING. APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT. A meeting, organised "by women in the interests of the Bible in Schools League took place in St. Matthew's Parish Hall yesterday; afternoon. Miss E. R. Edwards, principal'.of the Diocesan High School, occupied the chair, and in introducing the speakers referred, to.the need for restoration of Bible teaching in the schools. Its absence, she said, had produced a • generation composed largely of people -who knew neither their own Church teaching nor that common to other churches. Bible teaching should be part of the school course pvery day. It was far too important to be confined to one day per week or to those who sent their children to • •day school. Broadcasting might be 1 for reaching-small isolated coun- .■ schools. ihe Rev.:E. O. Blaniires, while com-

■ ding the good work done by the Xelson system, said it was.ineffective lit leaching small country schools, and only touched a fraction :of the 2500 primary schools of New Zealand. The present bill' was a perfectly fair one. • The Hon. •,■£, M,. Isitt,* M;L.C, said that women must organise to demand the rescue of the children of the land from the darkness in which fbej were left by the present, system. The following resolution' was carried: "This meeting of .jvomen of Auckland, white supporting a system of education free, national and compulsory, ie in opposition to the law. ..thai enacts that in the primary schools the teaching should be entirely •■ secuJar 'in schoolhours, and calls ou Parliament to provide facilities whereby in the., school course the children of , parents-", who desire the provision of religious elements in education may no longer l)e forced to accept la' system opposed to their convictions." - : ■ , : - .