DIVINITY DEGREES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 21, 26 January 1911, Page 2

DIVINITY DEGREES.

TO THE EDITOB. Sir,— "Putting Back the Clock" aptly describes what will be the result if the Government weakly allows degrees of Divinity in our universities. It would undoubtedly be a, retrogressive step. We have every reason to be satisfied with our secular system. Under it, our Dominion has progressed wonderfully, and the secular system has turned out men and women of whom we are justly proud. Introducing religion either into our schools or universities means waste of time discussing, uselessly, a subject upon which the majority of people can never agree. Religious teaching should be outside the schools altogether. I do not for one moment undervalue religious teaching and the good it does, but religion is the particular work of the churches, and should be taught there. If priests and parsons cannot influence the people except through the schools, it shows that they are doing their work very inadequately. It simply amounts to this— that portion of the community, who cling to old traditions and superstitions, would, if they could, force us all back into beliefs from which many of us have long since broken away. We who believe in progress, believe also in religious progress, and therefor© resent any attempt, under the pretext of moral teaching in our schools, to force ,us back into old grooves of thought. Wishing the secular party every success in their endeavours to prevent the Church from interfering with our intellectual liberty, I am, etc., SYMPATHETIC. Wellington, 24th January.