BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 198, 23 July 1931, Page 2

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

PETITION AGAINST BILL. WELLINGTON, .July 23. The provisions of the Religious Instruction in Public Schools Enabling Bill are opposed in a petition presented to Parliament yesterday by Mr P. Fraser. It is signed by Professors Kirk, Gould and Slacken, and Messrs A. R. Atkinson. J R. Salt, F. L. Combs, W. J. McEldowney, A. E. Campbell and H. A. Parkinson. The petitioners submit that the Bill is an attempt to destroy the secularity of the State school svstem, arid that to pass the Bill would be to abandon the attitude of neutrality which the State has hitherto adopted to religious issues, to expose the teachers to serious risks, and to inflict a grave injustice upon denominations and individuals unable to share in the religious observances or religious instruction proposed by the Bill It is further submitted that the passing of the Bill would embarrass and perhaps destroy the , Nelson system, “under which thousands of children are now voluntarily receiving a genuinely religious instruction from competent religious teachers without pressure or responsibility of any kind on the part of the State, and that instead of removing these facilities it should he the aim of the Legislature to give them the widest possible etxension.”