RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 178, 26 April 1938, Page 15

RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN SCHOOLS

Possibility Of Withdrawal Of Authority CHURCH CONGREGATION’S PROTEST By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, April 25. A protest, against the threatened action of the Minister of Education, Hon. P. Fraser, to remove from primary school committees the authority under which they permit daily religious exercises ,at the opening \of schools took unusual form at All Saints’ Anglican Church, Ponsonby, on Sunday night. At the close of evensong the contemplated action was brought to the notice of the congregation by the vicar, Canon W. W. Averill, and the following resolution was carried unanimously :— “That this congregation of All Saints’ Church solemnly protests in the name of Christian democracy against the expressed intention of the Minister of Education to terminate daily voluntary religious exercises in State primary schools of the Dominion in opposition to the clearly expressed wishes of the great majority of parents of the children concerned.”

It is very seldom that a congregation of the Anglican Church is asked to express an opinion on any question at a service, and the matter was brought forward only because of its urgency. People were asked to vote by a show of hands.