The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1927. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Evening Star, Issue 19697, 26 October 1927, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1927. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Tiik Select Committee of the House of Representatives which has been considering petitions on the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill has completed its task. The report brought down by the committee, after hearing evidence on both sides, docs not dispose of the Bill, but it gives the best lead that could bo given to the House for dealing with it when its fate comes to bo decided in that Chamber The report endorses word for word the finding which was delivered by a select committee of the Upper House to which petitions dealing with the same Rill were referred a year ago. The conclusion readied is that the system of free, secular, and compulsory education has worked very well in New Zealand for fifty years. Our children have received incalculable benefits under it. No larger proportion of them than in other countries have grown up to bo either pagans or criminals. On the contrary, it is claimed—and we sec no reason why the claim should be questioned by anyone—that morally, socially, and religiously tiic people of this country can compare with those of any other part of the world. The committee thinks that the system which has produced these results, and which, it might have been added, has avoided many troubles and the bitterest kind of contentions, should be maintained. Like most of the opponents, however, of Mr Jsitt’s Bill, it is fully alive lo the value of Biblical and religions instruction. It believes that, that should be given by the Nelson system, “ in which leaching is imparted outside the statutory school hours, under which the State exercises no authority in religious matters, under which there is no compulsion or violation of the rights of conscience.” It can he given also in the Sunday school and the home, though to deal with these places for its inculcation did not conio within the committee’s scope. It does not matter that, if a full attendance of the committee had boon present when it was trained, this decision would have been aflinned by only the smallest majority. It receives additional weight from being the second report that lias been presented by a committee of the Legislature to the same effect, and the soundness of it should be apparent to all who wish to see our national education system kept free from religions strife and from demands for subsidies for denominational schools which, if they once began to bo accorded, would soon bo the end of it. It was significant of the differences of opinion which exist on this question that, in the evidence that was heard by the committee, Mr Caughley, the ex-Director of Education (than whom few men in New Zealand have done more for religious education in its proper place), appeared as a chief opponent of Mr Jsitt’s measure, while the present Director (Mr Strong) generally supported the Bill. But the support of Mr Strong was given to the Bill with a difference. Half of the value which Bible teaching in schools has for the present Director seemed to lie in the fact that it would be given there “under the guidance of the trained State school teacher.” But Mr Tsitt’s Bill does not provide for anything of the kind. It lays down that no interpretation or comment shall bo given by the teacher “ other than is reasonably necessary for grammatical explanation,” and there would bo even more opposition to it on the part of teachers than exists at present if it required more of them. Mr Strong thought that “verbal explanations should be permitted to enable the pupil to comprehend the language used.” But that object would in practice be irreconcilable with the aim of keeping sectarianism out of the schools. The instruction for which Mr Isitt’s Bill provides might be as impressively given by a set of gramophone records as in the manner which it lays down. It would be given then with the fewest dangers. Wo arc unable to follow Mr Atmorc’s statement that, under the right of entry system in Victoria, the clergy only take advantage of 13 per cent, of their opportunities. Authoritative figures which we have published claim that 122,000 children are receiving instruction, and 80,000 more have still to be reached, though the organisation of the Victorian system is not yet complete. But under the Nelson system, in New Zealand, where it has been best developed by the churches, 97 per cent, of the children are reached, “What can be done in Nelson, ii? Dunedin, and some other places surely can be done throughout the rest at the dominion.