VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 88, 12 January 1928, Page 8

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL

INSTRUCTIVE HOLIDAY FOR CHILDREN INNOVATION IN AUCKLAND An enterprise that is being watched with considerable interest is the holding in Auckland of a daily vacation Bible school, a movement which was inaugurated some 15 years ago in America by the International Sunday School Union (says the “New Zealand Herald”). ' Six years ago a vacation school was opened at Honolulu, and to-day seventeen large Schools are operating there. The Auckland Band of Hope Union, with solicitude for the numbers of children in the city who are not able to get away on holiday, has engaged Mrs. E. Cooper, of Honolulu, to inaugurate a school in the Hast Street Hall. Newton. This has been operating since the public schools closed for the holidays. About sixty boys and girls, aged from 6 to 12, find great interest in the varied programme of the vacation school. Character training upon the foundation of Bible teaching is the main objective of the school, and the virtues of obedience, industry, honesty, faithfulness, temperance, truth, and human service are inculcated by means of ingenious instruction in arts and crafts. Music, song, story, flag drill, pencils, crayons drawing paper, pictures, raffia, physical exercises, fret saws, carpenters’ “kits,” benzine boxes for timber, hammers, nails, needlework, etc., are all combined in what really is a personal and civic message to the children. The knowledge of the Bible, conveyed in so short a time would surprise many, while in the manual training and home science divisions the accomplishments day by day. The boys and girls attending are full of enthusiasm, and compared with the tameness and the temptations of merely roaming the streets, are having a pleasant and instructive holiday,. From the opening hymn to the final salute of both the Union Jack and the Christian flags, every minute of the session is of interest. After a prayer the children sing the National Anthem and march out to the tune of “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

The vacation Bible school, spent from 9.30 until .12 o’clock daily, excepting Saturday and Sunday, will close in the last week of this month. The Auckland Band of Hope Union hopes that this is but the beginning in New Zealand of a movement that has won through in other lands with gain to hundreds of thousands of children and to better citizenship generally. Mrs. Lee-Cowie, after seeing the value of the schools at Honolulu, is mainly responsible for Mrs. Cooper’s visit and services to Auckland. Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, honorary organiser of the union, is cooperating. „