SPIRITUAL TRAINING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 17, 21 January 1937, Page 6

SPIRITUAL TRAINING

AUCKLAND DISTRICT VOLUNTARY UNDERTAKING (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, January 20. Permission for teachers and school committees to co-operate in making provision for daily devotional exercises according to a plan submitted by the Bible-in-Schools League was granted by the Auckland Education Board. The exercises would be of five minutes' duration at the beginning of the day, and would be voluntary. The chairman, Mr. T. U. Wells, said that the Hawke's Bay and Wanganui Boards had given permission for exercises to be introduced where desired in their districts. In moving that the concession be granted in the Auckland district, Mr. P. A. Snell said that considering the effect the exercises would have on children in after years, the matter was one of great importance. The present state of the world showed that spiritual training was a primary necessity. The plan suggested was better than the existing Nelson scheme, whereby half an hour of religious teaching could be given weekly where desired.

The chairman said that the new scheme would not supplant the Nelson scheme, nor be in conflict with it where it was working satisfactorily. The fact that the exercises were a voluntary undertaking by the teachers and that there would be no suggestion of compulsion on either teachers or pupils would be impressed upon those concerned.