Untitled

Bush Advocate, Volume XX, Issue 1028, 16 May 1908, Page 5

(To the Editor.) Sir, — My attention lias been drawn to tho leader in your issue of Wednesday last. With your permission I should like to correct a few mistakes in it and to set more clearly beforo the public what Pastor Ries' motion .really asked the Education Board to do. — It was not a. "proposal to givo the committees the right to vary tho school hours," nor was it "an attempt to go behind the Act," and as you must be Avell aware we do not "believe that the end justifies the means." Further, the provposal did not ask that the Bible reading should be in school hours, nor did it ask the Board to delegate | its authority to any body; it simply asked the Board to. alter Regulation 15 so that once a week the school day | should bo 4£ hours instead of 5 hours. And probably you are aware that I the said regulation is a new thing framed only about seven months ago. In the proposal, the interests of the school were safeguarded in every possible way; for it was only on the recommendation of a committee backed by the headmaster and approved of by the Inspector that the Board would be asked to inajke the small change proposed. Surely these three parties might safely be trusted to make no recommendation that would in any way injure the school or be an infringement of the Act. I refrain from saying anything about the chairman's Tilling and remarks.— l am, etc., A. GRANT. . [The Rev. Mr Grant 3 s 1 statements in the foregoing are inconclusive, and' his reference to "nustakes" is. surely merely hair-splitting. He writes : "It (Pastor Ries' motion) was not a proposal to give the committees the right to vary the school hours!"' The*, following is the portion of the motion on which our remark was based: — "That regulation 15 be amended so; as to read: The teaching. ln the schools shall be for five hours daily for four days every week, and for four and a-half hours for one day a week, on 'the RECOMMENDATION DF A SCHOOL COMMITTEE and headmaster, and on the ap- . proval of the chief inspector. ." Now, considering that at the meeting of the North School Committee oh the 27th of April, the Rev. Mr Grant said that Mr. Hill, -the chief inspector, was entirely in sympathy with the movement to give. Bible teaching in the schools, it must be perfectly clear that the" proposal would really rest with the committees. It is equally clear that biit very few headmasters woiild have the courage to oppose the views of the committees on this question. The scheme to ..introduce Bible teaching during ordinary school hours is certainly an attempt to "get behind the Act." Sir William Russell stated the proposal was "against the spirit of tho Act," and we should be pleased to afford Mr. Grant space to prove, the contrary. — Ed. D.A.I