The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1908. SILLY TALK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 102, 1 May 1908, Page 4

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MAY 1, 1908. SILLY TALK.

It will be seen from an article published oh another page that Bishop Neligan, during ids visit to England, is still continuirg to traduce New Zealand. In a recent sermon he referred to the secular system of education under which New Zealand is " groaning," the results of which, he said Avith great emphasis, were "ghastly." He prayed God to forgive those in England who were trying to introduce the same system there. The present day fathers and mothers of children in the day schools of New Zealand had, he said, been brought up under the secular system, a statement which can only be regarded as being as sweeping as it is wanting in veracity. Many of these parents camo from England' and Scotland, where Eible instruction is l>art of the school curriculum. Further, there are in New Zealand nearly 300 private' and denominational schools, in which the Bible is regularly in evidence, and Auckland has over 70 of these, with a daily average attendance of considerably over 3000 pupils. Some of the parents of children now in State schools were undoubtedly educated in these private institutions. So much for the Bishop's accuracy. The census of 1901 also shows that New Zealand j had then 107,113 pupils attending Sunday schools, receiving religious instruction from 11,299 teachers. Then* again, Scripture lessons are regularly given in many State schools of the Dominion by a band of clergy and laymen and lay women, .who are quietly performing this work, while others are declaiming against the alleged absence of such instruction! It is only absent where the clergy neg- i lect their duty, for the Act gives every facility for their .giving Bible teaching, though the .State, itself declines to teach religion. But all j these facts do not count where the Bishop desires to score a point, and j in order to influence the donations he j is seeking he makes exaggerated and j misleading statements at the other end of the world—where he is., for a time at least, free from contradiction —which he would, never .venture to make in his own diocese. "Ghastly," says the Bishop, are the results of the secular system he so inaccurately depicts. But he disdains details as to wbat "ghastly "'experiences have, come under his notice as the result j of our obnoxious education law. '-We; have less crirao, less illegitimacy. < and less drunk-pun^s than many other :

countries where secular education is not•-,tha". rul^i ; : Onr official records show: ■ th'at-^itf ev^ry method of comparison by which the .Wealth, the health, or the moral welfare of a dountry are determined New Zealand stands, highl The "• ghastly " results which have so overpowered and horrified the Bishop as to render him incapable of defining them are not apparent from any known statistical methods. But Bishop Neligan may have some means of arriving at opposite conclusions to the compilers of our State records, and he will no doubt in good time reveal the hidden sources of his inspiration. Until that time comes we must be content to rely upon the official figures, and conclude that the Bishop 'is talking at random for a purpose.