BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 16, 13 October 1927, Page 8

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

BILL VIGOROUSLY CRITICISED “GRAVE ISSUES INVOLVED” VIEWS OF EX-DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION A vigorous denunciation of the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill was made by Mr Caughley, formerly Director of Education, in evidence before the Education Committee of the House of Representatives yesterday. He claimed that it violated the fundamental principles of political justice and Christianity, Mr. Caughley emphasised that a tremendous issue was involved in the Bill. It raised a great crisis in the history of New Zealand. It represented the parting of the ways in respect of religious fairness and equality of treatment. It was a most fatal step towards discrimination between religious denominations—a step that had never yet been taken by the Government of New Zealand. The Bill was an effort to decide over again the issues of the Stuart period and the Test Act, and the injuries involved under that Act, by which a man’s religious convictions were made a test of whether he should hold an appointment under the Crown and whether tho people should pay taxes for the teaching of a form of religion to which they were opposed. The Bill represented a futile attempt to gather everybody into some form of religion by Act of Parliament. The promoters aimed in the Bill at compulsion in getting people into a sphere of religious teaching where they could not otherwise be brought. No political majority had any right whatever to determine matters of conscience or to coerce a minority. The Christian Churches should repudiate the Bill oven if Parliament did not. Tho Bill, was totally opposed to Christian ethics. It had peen said that even if sectarian influences were at present working to prevent certain teachers fnom getting appointments, matters would be no worse under tho Bill. Tremendous issues were ignored here. The same arguments would be strongly opposed by the promoters of this Bill if it were a.pplied in respect of legalising prostitution or gambling. A form of gambling was legally sanctioned in New Zealand, but the promoter of this Bill was fiercely opposed to it. It was wrong to say that because an evil was going on unsanctioned by law that it did not matter if it were legalised, Christian Principles Violated. The Bill not only violated the principles of political justice but also tho fundamental, principles of religion. It was flying in tho face of the direct teaching of the Founder of Christianity. The supporters of the Bill, if they saw things in proper perspective, would not touch it. The Bill raised the greatest principles of political liberty which had been fought over for centuries. The promoters of the Bill declared that the child was in need of spiritual training. They were utterly illogical because even if’ nine-tenths of their arguments were admitted, they had not oven begun to justify the State taking up the . matter. The promoters of the Bill said the present educational system was Godless. Ho was prepared to put the product of our educational system alongside the product of any other system and he was not afraid of the result. The “snippet” or religious instruction in this. Bill could nave no more effect on crime than the turning of a prayer wheel. In New Zealand they had the highest percentage of the population attending Sunday Schools in the world and to this fact he ascribed the fine .moral character and upbringing of ■ the children of the Dominion. Where the State let religion alone the churches shouldered their responsibilities better and were most vigorous. The attendances at Sunday Schools were increasing in New Zealand and there was a. great and growing extension of the Bible Class movement. This went to show that they were not neglecting their . religious duties. It was absurd to say tha a knowledge of the Bible was essential to an understanding and knowledge of great literature.. Why were the promoters of tho Bill not honest and say that they wanted the Bible in schools for religious purposes? Whose fault was it that many children were not receiving religious training? It was tlje duty, not of tho State, but of the churches and the parents to teach religion to the ■ children. If they were not properly taught, then that was the fault of the churches and the parents. Therefore the Bill was a con- ' fession of weakness. What was proposed in the Bill was a grotesque caricature of any attempt at religious instruction, which he was not sure would bo condemned by tho Founder of Christianity. The children were asking for bread, but under this Bill they were to bo given a stone. The Teaching of Children. Beading meant the getting of the thoughts put into a written passage. Any inspector would degrade a teacher on the grading list, or even, dismiss him, if he found him conducting an ordinary lessbn on the lines proposed in the Bill in regard to religious instruction. This was not reading at all but the same kind of thing as they saw “educated” horses doing in a circus.

No writing contained such obscure thought as was to bo found in the Bible. He could rewrite whole passages without altering their meaning and they would be positively Dutch to children because they represented tho spiritual thought and idealism of a race. Any educationalist would come down with a sledge-hammfer condemnation of what was proposed in the Bill. It was fearfully bad educationally. What sort of impression would it give the children to put Bible reading on a lower plane than "Mary had a little lamb” or some fairy tale? First impressions were tremendously important in the teaching of children, and what was proposed in the Bill would actual ly spoil the effect of religions teaching in the home or the Sunday school. It contradicted the teaching of the Bible by a form of idolato.-y and a worship of formalism and the fiercest denunciations of Scripture were against that.

If, as the promoters of the Bill alleged, this soulless, mechanical Scriptural reading would have any effect upon morality, then any proper effort at religious teaching by the Churches would revolutionise, evangelise, and Christianise the whole country within a generation. They could surely credit the promoters of tho Bill with some intelligence. Could they reasonably believe that this was what they wanted and where they intended to stop?' The Bil was merelytho “camel’s nose. Could .hey build up Christian ethics and a code of honour on this kind of. tactics? It might be all right in politics, but not in re--11 M°"' P. Fraser: I hope you do not suggest that politics are not in tho interests of morality? Mr. Caughley: Oh, no! I think there is quite a lot of good in politics. Shortcomings of N.S.W. System. Continuing, Mr. Caughley eaid that when he was Director ot Education he spent six weeks in New South Wales schools. Incidentally ho noticed the working of the system of religious instruction there, which was conducted on freer lines than was proposed in the Bill. He said without fear of contradiction that he did not in one solitary class see the Bible-reading lesson taken in a way that would not bring a blush to the cheeks of any Sunday school teacher in New Zealand. He found one boy reading a ‘'penny dreadful” cn top ,

of tho text book he was supposed to be following. The children were just sitting like a lot of sheep. Tho system was simply tolerated. Ho found this without exception. Those teachers who did not refuse to take the lessons did not caro twopence about them. They bad the “right of entry” it) New South Wales by which any minister could teach tho children in their own faith it they wished. But although they had .that right not one-tenth of the ministers gave any attention to religious teaching in the schools. When the mat-* ter was discussed by tho Anglican Synod in Sydney some of the clergy almost wept over the neglect of the ministers to take advantage of their right of entry to the schools. Yet they were told that tho system was popular in New South Wales! It was wrong to say that the system was either popular or working effectively. The churches there had no faith in it, and ignored it to a deplorable extent. The Cbnsoience Clause.

Mr. Caughley said if be were a teacher he would claim tho right of the conscience clause, and positively would not give religious instruction under the Bill, which violated the principles of political justice and tho whole ethical teaching of the Bible. The churches ought to show that they had used all the means of religious instruction to their own bands. If they had not done that, what right had they to urge Parliament to adopt a measure making for intolerance and injustice? They should say the State would not undertake the religious teaching of the children, and therefore tho churches should do it. Lack of Family Worship and Teaching. Referring to the falling off of family worship and religious instruction in the home, Mr. Caughley said he had vainly challenged the Presbyterian Church to take a vote of its members on whether they carried it out. He asserted that they could not get 20 per cent, to say that they did so. He would say that not one-half of tho office-bearers in rue churches supporting the Bill gave ten minutes on four days a week to religious instruction in their own homes. What right, therefore, had these people to plead the need and the- Godlessness of the school children in support of the Bill? He had been 50 years a member of the Presbyterian Church, but in that time he had not heard five sermons impressing upon parents the necessity of aiving religious instruction to their children. Yet they pleaded before Parliament the need for the Bible in the schools. He could name scores of families in which the Sunday school had been the only religious factor in the lives of the children, and in which there had been no teaching in the home. Value of Sunday Schools. Emphasising the value of Sunday school work, which the promoters of the Bill were willing to ignore, Mr. Caughley said he would undertake to double the attendance at New Zealand’s Sunday schools, already proportionately the highest in tho world. Anybody could do it. yet the churches were not doing it, and the ministers were crying out for this Bill. He denied that any child would develop into a membar of a Christian Church on tho instruction proposed in the Bill. It was a peculiarity of the ecclesiastical mind to try and get the people under one big umbrella, where they thought everything would be all right. If was a reversion to the attitude expressed in tho Act of Uniformity. Nelson System Praised. In many respects, said Mr. Caughley, the Nelson system was very like tie Sunday school. He was positive that none of the supporters of tho Bill would say that the actual teaching under the Nelson system was not immeasurably superior to anything under tho Bill. Did half of the Ministers in New Zealand avail themselves of tho Nelson system? Why did they not go into the schools to teach under this system when school committees were willing to let them, and no board had any power to stop them? The Minister of Education questioned this statement, and quoted the case of the Wanganui Board.

Mr. Caughley replied that tho clause in the Act was expressly framed to prevent boards hampering tho operation of the Nelson system. No by-law framed bv a board could stop a committee giving permission if it thought fit.

The Churches shamefully neglect the opportunity afforded them under the Nelson system. The ecclesiastical mind must have the Bible “in the schools.” They wanted this, because the "teaching” would be in school hours, and the Nelson system was out of school hours. That was tho very point that taised all the tremendous difficulties that they ought never to touch. The children would learn more in one year under the Nolsob system than in ten years under tho system proposed in the Bill. A Denominational Bill. Mr. Caughley denied that it was a. bad thing to exclude the Bible from the schools. The very denominations, supporting this Bill would prevent the State from giving religious instruction in tho schools without doing an injustice to another sect. It was not the Roman Catholic Church that was responsible for sectarianism. It was the churches asking for this Bill who had created denominational ism. The- Roman Catholic Church, which had originally Christianised Europe, had surely some right in the matter. The form of religious teaching in the Bill was denominational as between Protestants and Catholics. Ni> one could get away from that. The Roman Catholic conscience could not share in the propagation of the teaching in the Bill or pay taxes to support it. If what tho Bill proposed was antagonistic to another Church it could not be denied that it was denominational. He had already pointed out that it would cost the State 4)175,000 a year to provide a form of religious instruction agreeable to the denominations banded together in support of the Bill. What just reply, therefore, could Parliament make if the Roman Catholics asked for a proportionate grant in support of the teaching of their own faith in their own schools? No answer had been given. It would not be fair to attempt to proceed with the Bill if its promoters would not give a fair answer to the question. Would a Bill have the ghost of a chance of going through if the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans found a basis of agreement and the Nonconformists were to be left out? If the present Bill went through they would in justice have to give the Catholics n grant or commit an injustice in the name of religion. Tho same man who had during tho war denounced the injustice'alleged in respect of military service for the Marist Brothers would reflect an injustice under this Bill upon one-seventh of the population of New Zealand.

Mr. Caughley also dealt with the possibilities of grave injustice Ixiing done to teachers who took advantage of tho conscience clause of the Bill.

At present appointments of teachers were made on the basis of the grading list with the proviso that if the board and the senior inspector agreed, in certain circumstances, they might appoint some other. Or if two-or more teachers were of equal merit, the board might submit their names to the school committee for final decision. If that could be done now what would be the position if a teacher, sent to a district Where an intolerant sect held sway, said his conscience would not permit his giving certain instructions? The teacher’s life could be made a little Hell Summing ur>. Mr. Caughley said tho promoters of Hie Bill were flying directly and blatantly in the face of the duty of one man to another, and of political and religious justice. . He appealed to them and to Parliament to drop the Bill, which violated the fundamental principles of justice and Christianity.