“PATHETIC RESOLUTION"

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 23 February 1945, Page 4

“PATHETIC RESOLUTION"

SUBJECT OF RELIGION IN SCHOOLS COMMENT BY METHODIST CONFERENCE PRESIDENT Disappointment at the decision reached by the recent Education Conference in regard to religion in schools, was expressed by the Rev. A. H. Scrivin, president of the Methodist Conference, in his inaugural address at Dunedin last night. “It is a matter of grave concern for all Christian people in New Zealand that the recent Education Conference attended by 120 delegates of more than 60 organisations, was unable to make a pronouncement on the topic which, aroused by far the deepest interest both in the Conference itself and among the general public—that of religion in education,” he said. “After many hours of committee work and almost a full day’s discussion the following pathetic resolution was carried. ' On the subject of religious education there was insufficient representative authority and not sufficient growth of unity in the community to make any pronouncement cr recommendation.’ England, after full and careful deliberation, is embodying religious instruction in its school curricula. A recent conference in London, attended by educationists from all the Allied nations has declared that religious training should be available for all children.. The late Archbishop of Canterbury declared, ‘The further object which the school is known to serve must be of such a kind as to foster individual development on the one hand and world-fellowship on the other. There is only one candidate for this double function: it is Christianity. We must then take steps to secure that the corporate life of the schools is Christian.’ As recently as 1943 Mr Winston Churchill said: ‘Religion has been a rock in the life and character of the British people upon which they have built their hopes and cast their cares. This fundamental element must never be taken from our schools.’ But on this vital matter concerning which others speak so surely and emphatically, a New Zealand Education Conference can make no pronouncement or recommendation! Is this inability to recognise the claims within our public schools of the highest andf most vital part of the child—his spiritual nature—truly representative of the mind of the parents of New* Zealand or is it the opinion of only a voluble* minority? We suspect the latter and? would urge that this matter is important enough to become one of the main planks at the next election. Let the people declare whether in a so-called Christian nation, every daily session of whose Parliament opens with prayer, and whose laws are founded on Holjr; the Word of God shall bfc deliberately excluded from the curricula.