BIBLE IN STATE SCHOOLS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 October 1929, Page 6

BIBLE IN STATE SCHOOLS

ARCHBISHOP AVERILL’S OPINIONS. AUCKLAND, October 10

“Because the fetish of free, secular, and compulsory education has caught the popular imagination and provided a popular political slogan, the Church has been unsuccessful in its efforts to obtain the reading or teaching of the Holy Scripture in the State primary schools,” said Archbishop Averill in his presidenVial address to the Anglican Synod this morning. “For years we liave endeavoured to get a definite acknowledgement of Almighty God,” added his Grace. “We are not so foolish as to suppose that the millennium would he in sight even if the State amended the Education Act and provided for the education of the whole child by recognising 'die value and importance of the spiritual side of the child’s nature, but we do make hold to say that the children would he far better equipped to face the temptations and pitfalls of life if they had some solid reason and foundation for living a moral life, and some nobler vision of the meaning and opportunities of life.”

The executive of the Bible in State Schools League was not submitting its Bill to the present Parliament, said the Archbishop, but was still carrying on its work and would endeavour to secure such amendments to 'die Hon. .Mr Thomson’s Bill, which advocated the Victorian system, that it might to a large extent cover the same ground as the Church’s own Bill. The Victorian system was very similar to what was known as the Nelson system and suffered from the same defects, namel\\ religious teaching must he given outside school hours, and very few children in the country schools could he reached by it. In the meantime lie recommended the clergy to use such opportunities as they might obtain under the Nelson system of giving some religious instruction to children in the State schools.