THE EDUCATION BOARD AND SCIENCE. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 44, 21 February 1908, Page 2

THE EDUCATION BOARD AND SCIENCE. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,— By circular 2/08, just issued, the Secretary of .he Education Board notifies the chai'-.nen of School Committees that at the request of a notoriously active partisan of certain religious tenets it is sending tho headmaster of each school a copy o? the decalogue presented 'by him. Apart from the extreme Sabbatarian views held by the donor which the decalogue on the face of it supports outi'ight, it is questionable whether tho Board has a right to teach our children that the earth waa created in six days (an unqualified statement), or that God who is Love, is the vindictive being pictured by the early Jewish writers. If the board desires to teach, morality, let it be done by all means, but done without the addition of statements which, from a scientific point of view, the teachers are in duty bound to contradict, or without the intermixture of dogmatic teaching which is not even accepted by all Christian bodies. Do the clergy of Wellington as a whole believe that the earth was literally created in six days? I hold a higher estimate of their intelligence than to think thay do- If the statement needs explaining away, who is to do it? Are tho teachers to 'enter the field as reconcilers of religion and science? If so, by what right? It seems to me that tho board has exceeded its functions as tho administrator of a free, secular, and compulsory system of education by introducing the thin ond of the wedge of religious dogma, which if driven home by the clerical party will lead to the disruption of our present national system. Has the Education Department no power to keep the board within the limits of its proper functions?— l am, etc. TE MUM. Wellington, 13th February, 1908. A circular was sent to the chairman of each school committee in the following terms : — ''I beg to inform you that the board has accepted from Mr. Pi. G. Knight, as a gift, a copy of the decalogue mounted oa linen and rollers for each school in the educational district. A copy is being transmitted to the head teacher of your school in time for the re-opening.— -G. L. Stewart, secretary." The ooard, we are informed took the view that it would be to the advantage of the children to have before their eyes n,n exemplary moral code, but there is nothing in tho way of instruction on tho Commandments to bo given by tho teachers. Their duty is to neither contradict nor iuppoii. Nothing about hanging the Commandments in flic school is convoyed in the circular; tho gift is simply forwarded to tha chairman of the school committee, and another circular informs, each head teacher that this hds been done.