RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN STATE SCHOOLS,

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 3, 4 January 1900, Page 2

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN STATE SCHOOLS,

TO THE EDITOR. Sir — Mr. Harper's letter in your issue of 23rd inst. will come as a surprise to many people. Since- our Act came into operation some 20 years ago, up to date no other instances than Mr. Harper quotes, so far as I know, have occurred in which School Committees have declined to give up the school buildings for purposes of religious instruction during the available hours. Very few attempts, indeed, have ever been made to give such instruction ; but where they were made I think the Committees without exception met the requests as far as possible. As a rule, the few religious classes co formed were not successful, and in most cases were given up after a short trial. The clergymen — chiefly of the Church of England— were not to blame for this. But the fact was that the children did not attend in sufficiently satisfactory numbers and the parents didn't seem to care a great deal about that particular branch of education. I dare say they considered Sunday School, home instruction, and the visits of the clergyman met the case. Anyhow, these are the facts in a few words ; but if it be found that so extraordinary and unusual a state of things exists aa that, even in two or three localities, Committees are found to refuse to give the school building up to the minister during the available nours in- fore or afternoon, then the power of such refusal should be taken from them by legislation or other necessary means. The surprising part of Mr. Harper's letter, however, is that the refusals he met with should have come from people whom Mr. Harper rather sneeringly calls "Freethinkers." It is rather a pity that Mr. Harper should have introduced the word, or any word specifying religious or non-religious opinion into his complaint. For" one reason, because the por-t sons he refers lo did not- refuse him what he required because they were Free- , thinkers, but because they were not. A Freethinker is one who claims freedom of thought for himself, and accords the same freedom to all sorts of opinion. No real Freethinker would act as described by Mr. Harper, even allowing that the person himself claimed to be a Freethinker. Many people go to church who are Agnostics. And perhaps you would permit me to remind Mr. Harper that the day has gone by for ever for sneering at any liberal form of thought. All the great and intellectual minds of the present -generation, almost without exception, are Freethinkers, more or less. If Dr. Temple did not happen to be Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Harper would probably call him a Freethinker. The greatost poet of the age (Tennyson) was a Freethinker. If anyone doubts it, let him read "In Memonam." Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey. Look at the long procession of modern master minds in the realms of statesmanship, of academic learning, and in all the various branches of science, art, literature — it is, a procession mostly of Agnostics, otherwise Freethinkers. Carlyle was a Freethinker. So was George Eliot. So wap John Stuart Mill. So were many other mighty minds now dead. So are many great geniuses still living. So that, as I say) it is too late now to speak contemptuously of a form or mode of thought ■which characterises almost the whole of the great intellects of our day and generation. — I am, etc., i RICHARDSON BAR , Wellington, 25th December! 1899.