THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS MOVEMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 15138, 20 March 1913, Page 2

THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS MOVEMENT.

“ Wo ask the Dean, or the Rev. R. E. Davies, whether either of them is prepared to tell the people of this Dominion that the boys and girls of the New South ‘Wales schools—the children who have had the inestimable privilege of using as*a text book an expurgated Bible —are on a higher educational level, moral and intellectual, and better fitted for the battle of life than are the children of the New Zealand State schools? We are prepared to let the whole question depend on tins single test.”— 1 Evening Star,’ March 13. (i TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The question may bo reduced to its lowest terras,and restated: Is a school system that uses the Bible as a text book better fitted to produce good citizens than a school system that excjjMes the Bible? To this question the Bible in State Schools League answer unhesitatingly \cs. The four I‘eligious bodies whose governing courts have called into existence the league and authorised their policy make 74 per cent, of the population—Anglicans 41 per cent., Presbyterians 23 per cent., Methodists d per cent., Salvation Army 1 per cent. The remaining 26 per cent, include Roman Catholics, 14 per cent., who certainly would add their Yes; and all other denominations, 12 per cent., amongst whom there are probably not adew who would give the same answer, ultimate issues remain to be proved; but on the present showing it would appear that an overwhelming majority of the people of this country believe that a school system using the Bible as a text book is better fitted to make good citizens than a school system that excludes the Bible.

Permit me to note, however, that the comparison you suggest between New South Wales children and New Zealand children would necessarily be inconclusive. There is no way of making such a, comparison with accuracy. Deductions from it would be fallacious. Suppose that to all appearance New Zealand children, their school life ended, are on the. same level, intellectual and moral, as the New South Wales children; it would not follow that the Bible and religious teaching ought to bo excluded from the public schools. If I try to illustrate this point you will not accuse mo of seeking to evade or cloud the main issue. Lengthy experience leads me to expect in the Dunedin ‘ Star ’ a candid critic, a fair and honorable antagonist. Who shall say whether British civilisation or French is the higher? From thrift and industry upwards, the French people enumerate a long list of social and civic virtues; they excel in the arts; they are peculiarly rich in literature—more books are printed in French than in English, says Mr H. G. Wells, and if a student wants the latest, fullest, best-printed books on science he must go to Paris for them. Would it be reasonable to argue that because French civilisation seems as good as ours, though notoriously religion is a less active factor in education, we might safely drop British Sunday schools and all other agencies of Bible instruction for the young? In this and other communities throughout the Empire there are citizens who have not been trained in the New Testament; the New Testament is not among their sacred books. Yet they are law-abiding, publicspirited, not seldom foremost in every good Avoid and work. Because these non-Christians seem as good citizens as the rest, ii-ould it he reasonable to argue that the New Testament is ivithout any religions or educational value? ■Comparisons apart, it is our duty to give children the highest education avg knoAv; and the highest education aa’g knoAv makes duo use of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament and the Christian Scriptures of the Ncav, collectively the Bible. It Avill be the business of the Bible in State Schools League to prove that the larger part of the people of this Dominion think so.—l am, etc., A. B. Fitchktt. All Saints’ Parsonage, March 17.