EDUCATION IN STATE SCHOOLS.

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1910, Page 3

EDUCATION IN STATE SCHOOLS.

SECULAR DEFENCE LEAGUE,

CLERICAL ASSAILANTS

Advocates of maintaining the present State system of education—free, secular, and compulsory—met in Wellington recently for the purpose of forming a Secular Education Defence League, and to define its platform. In addressing the meeting the chairman said they had assembled to endeavour to maintain the present system in its integrity, to perpetuate its fundamental principles, and to say "Hands off" to all its assailants. The system had been assailed from its inception. /The same with similar systems elsewhere. No matter what the religion of the people, the clerical body in each country had been the most bitter foe of every modern system of education. Clericalism was the great enemy of the New Zealand Educational Act of 1577, and it was this fact which had brought them together. From the very birth of the Act the Churches had fought against it with might and main. Each ecclesiastical synod which met in the Dominion passed condemnatory resolutions of the secular character of the education in the national schools, and members pledged themselves to use their utmost endeavours to get that feature eliminated. Though their efforts had not been very successful, there was strong need for counter organisation. There were indirect attacks on the present system to be met here as well as direct ones —insidious and crafty well as bold and open ones. Herein lay the present danger. In this connection he referred to the Nelson school, which had already been adopted by several schools in different board districts, showing that the secular character of our Education Act had actually disappeared already in many parts of the Dominion. This transformation of the Act would continue unchecked unless some organisation was formed to deal with it. He moved:— That in view of the danger which threatens our present system of State education, a society be formed with the name, object, methods and conditions of membership suggested by the provisional committee. A DENOMINATIONAL COMBINE. Professor Mackenzie said that many of the friends of secular education were indisposed to credit the idea that the secular system was in any way seriously threatened. Denominational combines had triumphed elsewhere ; and there was a denominational combine forming in the Dominion. Though it might not be such as to count Jor much in the open social and political held, it had got special advantages from being able to use, at a day or two's notice, the machinery of ecclesiastical organisation. In the circumstances, those strongly opposed to admitting anything tending even to introduce sectarian strife among ihe children or impose a religious test on the teachers believed it was high time they organised. As Sir Henry Camphell-Bannerman put it in 1906:—"There must be no statutory freehold for sectarianism privilege in the public school system.'' Why ! should the civic ideal in education be jeopardised or replaced by what must be a purely denominational or sectarian one? The motion was carried. NAME AND OBJECTS. The society will be called the Secular Education Defence League of New Zealand. The object is to maintain a I purely secular system of education in the State schools. The objects are to i.'c attained by (a) educntii.r public opinion on the principles of the league; (b) securing the co-operation of societies formed for the same purpose; (c) defending teachers when their position is unduly rendered insecure by reason of religious difference or sectarian influence. THE PLATFORM. Mr J. Hutchinson moved the affirmation of the following platform: — This league affirms: 1. That it will resist any attempt to interfere with our purely secular system of State education. -. That in matters of religion, strict neutrality is the only just attitude that a State can assume towards its citizens. 3. That to introduce any form of religious instruction into our State system of education would be detrimental to the best interests of the schools, leading to sectarian strife among the children and imposing a religious rest upon the teachers.

4. That to determine the question of religious instruction, or Bible reading, in schools by means of a referendum would be absolutely subversive of the neutrality of the State in matters of religion. v. That the Nelson system, even if it be within the letter of the Education Act, is an ingenious evasion of its real spirit and intent, and that the league will oppose this innovation. 6. That the league is strongly opposed to the introduction of the New South Wales text book into the State schools of the Dominion. The motion was seconded by the Rev. Mr Jellie, supported by the Rev. Van Staveren and Messrs W. McLean and J. Dowdell, and carried unanimously.