RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 106, 31 October 1914, Page 6

RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS

The Education Committee of the House of Representatives, the House itself, and the country are all to be very heartily congratulated upon the outcome of the Committee's investigation of the various petitions presented for and against the proposals of the Bible-in-Schools League. With an almost incredible patience, which, if it? has tolerated an appalling amount of irrelevancies, has at any rate prevented any of the parties concerned from complaining that it has not had a fair hearing, the Committee has accumulated an immense amount ot evidence, but the weakness that seemed to dg indicated by this excessive indulgence finds no place in its report. The finding is clear and uncompromising. Though the subject is one on which politicians who were ojkjo rugardud <wi strong msn have «hown themiejvee deplorably timid and. he«i«

tating, and some of them, like the Premier himself, have felt, constrained to talk on both sides at once., the report of- the Education Committee is as downright as words could make it. The Committee considers, in the first place, that our children have received "incalculable benefits" from the State eystem of free, secular, and compulsory education, that as a result of it our people "compare most favourably, morally, socially, and religiously, with the people of any other part of the world," and that the system shoidd therefore be maintained. Fuliy alive, nevertheless, to the value of Biblical and religious instruction, the Committee favours the granting of full opportunity for the adoption of a voluntary system such ac the Nelson system, "under which the State exercises no authority in religious matters, and under which, there is no compfllsion or violation of rights of conscience." Even after these decisive judgments, there was still a possibility that the Committee might seek the normal salvation of the shuffler in the attempt to please bothsides by claptrap about "trusting tha people," but it refused to do so. Its courage and consistency were carried up to the final point of recommending "that the proposals in the Religious Instruction in Schools Referendum Bill, introduced by the Hon. James Allen, should not be allowed to berome law ' So thorough-going a pronouncement ie likely to be of "incalculable benefit to the people of this country, and is certainly one of the most distinguished performance* of the session. It is marvellous what lip-service our secular system of education received from the politicians when there was notod) to attack it It is deplorable to see how they began to shake at the knees, and to lisp the saving "Yes-No" shibboleth of the so-called re ferendum as soon as the bulk of the Protestant clergy, drawing upon the reGerves of energy accumulated during i years of wholesale neglect of the facilities for voluntary religious teaching in " the State schools, banded themselves together to attack it. The clear and courageous pronouncement of the Education Committee on the very 'eve of the General Election may well serve a-s a rallying- ! point for the defenders of the State school system. The first body that has rallied to the Committee's lead is the House of Representatives. By 46 votes to 17 it rejected the motion for referring the report back to the Committee. Who would have ventured a year ago to j prophesy that just before the' General Election the House-would declare by a vote of nearly three to one in favour of so thorough-going a report? That was. substantially the effect of the division, though on a motion to refer a report back there is 'always a possibility of some confusion in the voting. It is, however, noteworthy that the opponents of the repoit made no oUier attempt to express their dissent, which they surely would have made if there had been any likelihood of appreciably improving their position. That there was any division at all was mainly due to the toefcical indiscretion of Mr. James Allen He took exception to what wa« undoubtedly the point in the report which was least open to attack and was therefore the last one that a discreet opponent would have selected for attack. Mr. Allen's main objection was the purely technical one that to deal with the Nelson system was beyond the scope of the Committee's order of reference. We shall not waste words upon an entirely unmerttorious technicality which would never have been raised by anybody who had not a solid grievance behind it. Mr. Allen's solid grievance is his objection to the Nelson system being regarded as tne only system suitable to this country. In other words, he does not find the Nelson system objectionable in itself, but he does object to its being considered ,better than the proposals of the Bible-in-Schools League. Even so, his objection was ill taken, for the clause in the report to which he took exception did not say more than that the Nelson system, or something on the same lines, is to be encouraged. If TVir. Allen does not regard the Nelson system as objectionable in itself, he should have supported this clause, and challenged the next clause which 'Condemned the Garland- Allen Bill ; but even Mr. Allen's courage shrank from that task. Be has, however, supplied clear evidence of the hostility ot the Bible-m-Schools League to the Nelson system. Four years at least must pass before the League's proposals could reach the Statute Book, since the plebiscite could not be taken before the General Election of 1917, and it would take -another -year to pass the necessary Bill. To cure the "godlessness" of the schools during those four years the League will not raise a hand or a voice, and their accredited representative in the House uses all his great influence to perpetuate it. His indiscretion yesterday put his colleagues in a very awkward position, as the division-list shows. The whole Cabinet has failed during the whole sessi6n to say as much for the State school system as Mr. Russell for the Opposition compressed into a few ringing sentences yesterday.