LOYALTY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17460, 22 May 1922, Page 4

LOYALTY.

TEACHING IN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOLS. (from our own correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 10. In future all children attending public schools in Now South Wales will recite once a- week the words, "I honour my God; I serve my King; I salute my flag," and every effort will be made to insure tho observance of those sentiments by tho children. In making an announcement to this effect, the Minister fcr Education (Mr A. Bruntnell) said that he had issued a mifiute to tho rruisters of all State schools instructing them to form the whole of the pupils into a 'hollow square round the flagstaff, on which the flag is flown on the first school day in each week, and then teach them to recite the words above. After saluting the flag, the children shall sing one stanza of the National Anthem, and martlh to their various class-rooms. Mr Bruntnell said that ho had come to the conclusion that the need of reverence and loyalty in the citizenship of to-day could not bo impressed too strongly in the minds of the children. "There is u good deal being done in other directions," he went on to say, "to poison the minds of the dniidren against God, tha King, and the Empire, and I consider that it is imperative that we should, ao far as our Stato | schools are'concerned, counteract this-j perpicious influence by instilling into the minds of the children this duty. "It has been the custom," added Mr Bruntucll, "to do something of this sort on special occasions, but I am desirous that this should take precedent on tho first school day in each week. I firmly believe that this procedure will 'have wholesome results."