RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND STATE FUNDS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 10, 6 October 1927, Page 12

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND STATE FUNDS

Sir,—There is a most important fact which certain opponents of religious instruction in State schools seem to overlook whenever thev write or speak about this subject, namely, their amazing inconsistency. Secularists and materialists demand that State funds shall not Ire devoted to the teaching of religion in our public schools. Their contention is that those who desire religious education for their children ought to be prepared to pay for it from their own private resources. Be this as it may be, one fact is quite notorious, namely, that the materialists are npt slow to seize hold of other public and State funds for the express purpose of propagating their own religion, t£at is the faith and teachings (the extreme dogmatism) of the Rationalist sect, Professor Hunter and others who think like him, are obviously guilty of this strange inconsistency every time he and thev lecture under the auspices of the WE. Association, The association just mentioned is in receipt of an annual grant from the state. Moreover, it receives allowances from the rates of many urban and rural bodies: ’all publie money, bear in mind. Now Professor Hunter and other salaried servants of the State do not scruple to use the W.E.A funds (which are mainlv public money) tor propapanda work in the interests of the materialism and secularism and dogmatic atheism of the Rationalist Society, in other words, of their religion. Therefore they are convicted of inconsistency, a thing all the more reprehensible in them because of their boasting appeal to reason and common sense. Can Professor Hunter or any other materialistic W.E.A. lecturer deny this religious-minded publio await a MANSFIELD. Waverley, September 27.