RELIGIOUS EXERCISES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 19, 22 July 1925, Page 6

RELIGIOUS EXERCISES

AN OPPOSING PETITION

In the House of Representatives yesterday, Sir John Luke (Wellington North) presented a petition from Professor Hugh M'Kenzio and others praying that the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill be not passed, that the free, compulsory, and secular character of the present system bo strictly maintained, and that the petitioners may be heard in opposition to the Bill.

The grounds ot the petition are as follow :—

(1) That the success of the system of priniary education in New Zealand and the' harmony with which it has worked would have been impossible if a fruitful cause of trouble in other lands had not been avoided by the exlusion of religious teaching from the curriculum. (2) Tor about twenty years prior to 1914 the secular character of the system was the subject of persistent attacks, which culminated in the Religious Instruction in Schools Bill, introduced that year and referred with numerous petitions to the Education Committee.

(3) The report presented to the House on the petitions favouring the Bill was as follows:—"I am directed to report that the Committee is of opinion that the proposals in the Religious Instruction in Schools Referendum Bill, introduced this session by the Hon. James Allen, be not allowed to pass."

(1) The report on the 78 petitions praying that the national system of education On its present free, secular, and compulsory basis be maintained was as follows: —"1. am directed to report that jtho Committee has heard evidence on the subject matter of these petitions—much latitude being allowed witnesses in the desire to get all the facts —and J3 of opinion that the New Zealand State system of free, secular, and compulsory education (under which our children have received incalculable benefits, and under which, after thirty-seven years' experience, our people—the immense majority of whom have passed through our schools —compare most favourably morally, sociaJly, and religiously with the people of any other part of the world) should be maintained." '

(5) The .report on the 90 petitions objecting to certain provisions embodied in the Bill repeated the report last above quoted and added the following clause :— "Further, that the Committee is fully alive to the value of Bibilical and religious instruction, and is of opinion that free opportunity should be given for the adoption of a voluntary system, such as that known as the Nelson system, in which the teaching is imparted outside the statutory school hours, under which the State exercises no authority in religious mutters, and under which thero is no compulsion' or violation of rights of conscience." (6) The foregoing reports were approved by a vote of 46 to 17. (7) The decision of the House was confirmed at the General Election of 1914 by the defeat of the Bible in Schools Party's proopsals, which was so overwhelming that the question has since been regarded by the electors as-a dead issue, and the petitioners believe that at the last General Election ail the parties were committed to the support of the secular principle.

(8) The petitioners accordingly note with regret that a Religious Exercises in Schools Bill is now before Parliament, which seems to them to violate that principle and. to threaten the State school system with the .introduction of religious distinction and religious strife. .(9) The petitioners submit that the Bill providing 1 for religibus exercises consisting of: (a) The recitation of the Lord's Prayer; (b) the sinking or recitation of a hymn; and (c) the reading by the teacher or pupih of- a Bible lesson is, on the face of it, a plain violation of the sectilarity of the system that at the same time the limitations imposed upon the teaching would make'it of no real service to the cause of true. Teligion; and that to pass the Bill would be to abandon the attitude of neutrality which the State has hitherto adopted to religious issues, to expose the teachers to serious risks, nnd to inflict a grave injustice iipon denominations and individuals unable to sharo in the exercises.