BIBLE READING IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 11, 7 October 1927, Page 12

BIBLE READING IN SCHOOLS

Sir,—lt is gratifying to note that the people of the Dominion are beginning to realise that daily religions instruction must have its place in the education of the young. Our existing educational policy aims primarily at the development of the mental and physical faculties, but leaves the child groping in pagan ignorance of the fundamental truths essential to the formation of character. Education entirely divorced from religion is wrong in principle and disastrous in its ultimate effects, b'or instance, while the Bible remains to school children a sealed book, and reference to its pages is forbidden the teacher, the child reads in a departmental publication—the School Journal - —that Jupiter is king of the heavens. Instead of surfeiting the impressionable juvenile mind with fables, myths, and fairy tales, the inclusion of Biblical stories in the School Journal would be infinitely more beneficial and would assist the teacher in moral instruction, which must have a religious basis to be effective.

The advocates of the Nelson system appear oblivious to the fact that thousands of country school children scattered throughout New Zealand are not reached by the clergy, and consequently are deprived of the religiouns instruction given to the more fortunate pupils of town and suburban schools. The schools of to-dav are the training grounds for the citizens of to-mor-row, and to ensure that these young citizens in the making will be efficiently equipped to become useful members of society, Christianity must be made the predominant note of education. With the Ben Commandments and the Word, of God as a basis for moral instruction, we mav pave the way to the attainment of those ideals which make for The highest and best in our heme and national life.—l am, etc. _ t . ‘5 COUNTR Y TEACHER. October 4.