RELIGION IN SCHOOLS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 33, 8 August 1923, Page 6

RELIGION IN SCHOOLS

SPECIAL EXERCISES PROPOSED,

Seized with the desirability in the interests of education of including in the school curriculum religious' exercises of j a simple character, apart from any instruction in the tenets, dogma, Sr creed peculiar to any religious denomination. Mr. L. M. Isitt (Christchurch North) has introduced to Parliament a Religious Ex- . ercises .in Schools Bill. I The-Bill proposes that there shall be . allotted each day at the opening of every public, secondary, technical, and Native school-a period of not less than fifteen minutes, nor more than twenty minutes, for religious exercises consisting' of the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, the singing or recitation of a. hymn from a ' hymnal to be compiled by the Education ; Department after consultation with the ; representatives of the Christian churches, and. the reading by the teacher of a | Bible lesson from a manual compiled in j the same way, . this lesson to be unaccorcI punied by any comment or interpretation ) other than is necessary for grammatical explanation. No child or teacher is 'to be .compelled to attend,- and in the cast of all the teachers at a school having conscientious objections, arrangements are proposed for the school committee or I controlling authority to nominate such j person as they think fit to conduct the j exercises. Where religious exercises are : already being performed, differing from (those prescribed in the Bill, it'is pro- | posed that they may be continued un- | altered. ' ' ■