RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11889, 12 May 1899, Page 6

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In an article under the above heading,, commenting on a motion carried al a meeting of the Christchurch Presbytery you say:—“None of the speakers made any attempt to meet the arguments advanced against their proposal.” I never heard a single common-sense argument used against religious instruction in public schools ; perhaps you will be good enough to inform your readers as to the said arguments. Also, why children in New Zealand should be denied the advantage enjoyed, by children in European countries? It is amusing to find the Editor of the " Lyttelton < Times ” taking up the cudgels in defence of our present system of education, seeing that: he himself, only a few weeks since, admitted that what he had been defending for years as “our grand education system,” must be reformed.—l am, etc., . . . T.H.S. (The principal objection to religious instruction being given in public schools is that there is no form of teaching that would not be offensive to a number of the parents of the children and of the ’ other taxpayers who provide the funds for the maintenance of these institutions. There is nothing inconsistent in aoplauding the principle of our education system and urging the amendment of some of its details.—Ed. “L.T.”)