BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 111, 13 May 1938, Page 6

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

I protest r"«unst the attempt to dee troy the intellectual liberty of the teacher and pupil in our schools. While school attendance is compulsory, it is obviously monstrotisly unfair to combine with it religious exercises of any kind or form. There is a time and place for such teaching, and if children will not voluntarily attend Sunday schools, why attempt to force it on them? Is there any sudden revival of religious feeling among the parents? Census statistics show a rapid growth of Rationalist and non-religious thought. Add to this the many religions which are opposed to any religious teaching in State schools, and one obviously concludes that our State education should be what it was originally intended to be—secular and unbiased. Until we have this, the teacher and pupil who are not in agreement with the religious beliefs of the Bible-in-Schools League and ita adherents are inevitably penalised. True, at present at least, attendance at religious exercises ie not compulsory. But parents are generally either not aware of this (for their permission is not always, asked when a child starts school), or indifferent, or afraid of exposing the child to victimisation, and so do not protect and absent their children. I find in my own caee that the child is asked questions and in many obvious ways made to feel different from others—and, as n» alternative classes are provided for those who do not attend, they are often gradually "absorbed" into religious teaching. These evils should be removed. There is no reae.on for them to continue, and I urge all teachere and parents who feel the need to-day of upholding fre'edom in every quarter to act. C. M. BARTON.

Those who -were responsible for the calling of last Tuesday nighfs meeting in the Auckland Town Hall professed to be motivated by a desire to defend the rights of the children of New Zealand. Their actions do not support this claim. ' The Education Act Amendment Bill wae designed to bring about many muchneeded reforms in our education system, changes which will be of benefit to our children. These church representatives were prepared to cloud the whole issue and to emphasise one insignificant point in order to gain their own ends. It is not the teacher's job to instruct children in religion; that is the work of the Church. The churchee, by endeavouring to foist this duty on to the teacher* in our secular schools, admit their failure to carry out the one function for which they were established. Do all ministers of religion in New Zealand take part in the Bible reading under the Nelson system ? I know a number, by no means as hard-worked as school teachers, who do not. I wonder how many of the 1000 who gathered in the Town Hall on Tuesday conduct family prayers? If these people are so anxious that their children should have this early-morning session of praver and praise, surely the home i.s the proper place, oven if it docs moan petting up a little earlier. The live minutes' service at school can be nothing more than outward form. As I understand it, these organisations which are pressing for thie early-morning service are contravening the law; the 1914 Act did not aim at introducing religious instruction into the schools. Surely we can expect the churches to obey the spirit as well as the letter of law. The resolution passed on Tuesday acknowledges the importance of "safeguarding the rights of minorities,"' but to my mind the men and women who. in an election year, are prepared to hold a pistol at the head of a Minister of Education who has done so much for our schools and for our children, will care little for the rights of minorities. K. RYAN. (This correspondence is now closed.)