The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1864

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1192, 4 February 1864, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1864

Tirii Bishop of Christchurch addressed his clergy yesterday in a long and interesting charge on the subject of education. We are enabled to present it in cxtenso to our

readers to-day

Those who know the Bishop will be more pleased than surprised at the affectionate earnestness with which he pressed on his clergy the duty of taking care that the most important element of education —the inculcation of religious truth should be the object of their most assiduous attention.

It is however to be regretted, as we think, that his Lordship should be so much under the influence of a fear that the Education Commissioners wish to put an end to distinctive religious teaching. This we believe to be the very opposite of the truth. We have all along held, and still adhere to the opinion that the main object of the Commissioners is to provide good schools, and so to manage the religious part of the whole scheme of education, that it shall be as it were self-adjusting, giving to the various denominations very much the same degree of influence and prominence in different localities which they have hitherto enjoyed, in fact, as we have often said before, allowing a general system of education to work itself out in a denominational development. We may possibly be able to enter on a careful analysis of the Bishop's charge on a future occasion.