RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16602, 14 July 1914, Page 4

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—lt is good to read in your article on “ Religious Instruction in Schools” that you urge upon the people the duty of studying this important question. It is exactly what wo desire the public to do, for we are sure that the proposals of the Bible in Schools League only need to be understood to be appreciated and supported. No sane parent can desire to bo shackled, as he now is. with regard to the education of his children. Ho is in a helpless condition. The law says he must send his child to school, and if lie is a poor man that means the near- j est State school, in which on no ac- | count may any religious teaching be j given by anyone during school hours. It does'not ’matter how strongly the j father or mother may feel about the matter, the secularist says, at present, religion must not be taught to your children. Of course, if the parents are well off they can send their children to private schools and pay for the privilege of religious instruction. But why should this be the only way of obtaining what is felt to be a necessity by so many people when the State schools belong to us all ? Now the I/eaguc’s proposals merely provide for the restoration to parents of all creeds their just rights of control over the education of their children. We would have them free to deckle for themselves whether or not the Bible and religious _ instruction should form part of their children’s education, and we say the State should provide facilities for their wishes to be met. Surely very few parents will be found willing to vote for the continuance of their present state of bondage to tho secularist. < ■ You say “ religion is so entirely—and rightly—an individual matter that there is, in our opinion, a preponderance of reason against the teaching of it being made part of the system of compulsory and secular education now obtaining in New Zealand.” _ This preponderance of reason would indeed exist if the Bible in Schools League proposed to make either tho Bible reading or religious teaching compulsory. But such is" not the League’s proposal. What is the difference in principle between a majority of members of Parliament settling this question and a majority of tho electors? And yet you join with the opponents of the League in saying that the Referendum Bill goes too far in proposing that a ma _ jority (i. 0., of the people) may decide it. Our Lenguo will certainly not agree to any-question being put to the electors other than that winch it has petitioned for. We liavo fulfilled all the conditions of a referendum and if Parliament submitted any other question than ours to the people it would be doing a gratuitous and expensive act for which nobody had asked.—l nl " Ct<? ’ J. R. HEWLAND. Lyttelton, July 11.