BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 100, 25 October 1904, Page 6

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Mr. S. Arnold Atkinson, as Hon. Secretary of the State Schools Defence League, has forwarded the following letter to the Right Hon. the Premier : — Wellington, 24th October, 1904. The Rt. Hon. the Premier, Wellington. Sir, — In connection with the communication of the President of the Bible-in-schools Conference, we wish to place before you the following statement: — Th*e great majority of the intmbers of the State Schools Defence League are firm believers in the great efficacy of religious training in the hands of its proper teachers — parents and clergymen. "They have not forgotten the notable sacrifices that have been made in the past by our foiefathers to seoure the emancipation of religion from State control. They also remember that bitterness has ever been engendered in public life in older countries whenever questions of religion have been allowed to be introduced into politics. Hence in connection with the proposal to take a plebiscite on the question of Bible-reading in. schools, the State Schools Defence League desire to place these propositions on record: — • 1. That the State should not endow religion. 2. That the reading of the Protestant Bible or the Douay Bible by pupils in school hours under the direction of Statepaid teachers would at once endow religion — the religion of a section of the community. 3. That the State has no business to enquire into the religion, or wa,nt of religion, of any of its officials. 4. That the reading of the Bible in echoola under the direction of the teachers would at once impose a religious test upon every State school teacher in the colony. 5. That the State— i.e., Parliamentcan legislate so as to affect all department 3 of the life of the citizens in the interests of the community as a whole — always excepting matters of opinion and belief. In this domain no Mng, no priest, no presbyter, no legislator can possibly bo permitted to interfere. The free citizen is an-swerable to his own conscience only in matters of belief. 6. Hence in New Zealand, which endows no religion, -which imposes no religious test on any of its officials, wtaoh boasts itself a free colony, there can be no vote taken as to whether religion shall or shall not be taught in the schools of She State. As the communication to which tnis is in part a reply was handed to the press, there can be no objection to our following a similar procedure.— l am., etC " S. ARNOLD ATKINSON, Bon. Son State Schools Defence League