LORD’S PRAYER IN SCHOOLS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 4 December 1940, Page 10

LORD’S PRAYER IN SCHOOLS

TESTING PUBLIC OPINION BISHOP SUGGESTS A CONFERENCE “I do not think that any body of people such as the Churches or the New Zealand Educational Institute should arrogate to themselves the right of deciding in which direction public opinion is tepding at any given mo--5 ment,” writes the Bishop of Wellingj ton, the Rt. Rev. H. St. Barbe Holland, \ in an article in the current issue of the : “Church Chronicle,” on the question . of the Lord’s Prayer in the schools. I “But surely,” the Bishop goes on, “the ; educational organisation of the country, * with its school committees and boards, > is such that the Government could very i soon discover what the people of New 1 Zealand feel on this fundamental prob- : lem. We have recently seen, both in , the Old Country and in New Zealand, the speed with which vital decisions can be taken affecting the life of the whole nation. Need there be any great delay in implementing the mind of the people, as soon as that mind is discovered, along lines the details of which could be settled by conferences such as those already envisaged by the present Prime Minister when he was Minister of Education two years ago, between the three bodies primarily responsible for the well-being and education of our children, the Government, the teachers and the Churches? “The matter is too great to be allowed to degenerate into party controversy. It must be dealt with as a national issue.” SIR THOMAS HUNTER CRITICISED The right to teach religion in the State schools had been questioned by no less distinguished a person than the vice-chancellor of the University in his address to his rationalist colleagues on the previous Sunday, said the Rev. Gladstone Hughes, preaching in St. John’s Church, Wellington, on Sunday night. It was a strange conception of democracy that seemed to lurk at the back of the vice-chancellor’s mind—a state in which differences ceased to exist, continued Mr Hughes. The truth, however, was that they could have as many differences as they liked in a democracy, provided only they had the freedom to think themselves out of their differences, if they so desired. There was very little that could be taught without possibility of difference. Even the mathematical truth that 2 and 2 made 4 had been questioned by many who held the popular belief that the more they spent the mere they had. The denial of the right to give any positive religious teaching in the State schools was an attack on religion. No more insidious attack on religion could be made than to treat it as of no account. The official attitude was tantamount tc a recognition of the religious negations of the Rationalist Association. BASIS OF MORALITY The vice-chancellor’s real objection to the teaching of religion in State schools sprang from his denial of the religious sanctions of morality. The true basis of morality rested on social relationships, he had claimed. As Christians they held that the true basis of morality was cosmic—social, .in a cosmic and religious sense. To base morality on mere human social relationships was to base it on shifting sands. Let those relationships be changed and the standards of morality changed also. The moral need of our chaotic world was a standard which was fixed and absolute. Moreover, they held that social relationships depended ultimately on man’s final attitude to life, that is to say on his religious faith. That was why . they were convinced that human brotherhood could never become a full reality until all men wholeheartedly committed themselves to the faith in the Fatherhood of God. It was because the democratic ideal involved this that they demanded that the rising generation should be taught the faith in which that ideal lived, moved and had its being. The contributions of Greece and Rome to the underlying principles of democracy had been great and vital, but it was Christianity by its insistence on the spiritual equality of all ! men before God that had made real ; democracy possible. Without this , spiritual conception of man democracy ( must needs languish and die. No mea- 1 sure of perfection in democratic machinery could guarantee the survival of ! democracy, if its religious foundation was allowed to decay. It behoved them, therefore, as citi- ! zens of a democratic country and as be- . lievers in democratic dieals, to keep alive the faith and to hand it down to 1 their children and children’s children. The revolt against the purely secular conception of education showed clearly that the people were alive to the danger.