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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18509, 21 March 1922, Page 9

BIBLE-TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. TO THE EDITOB. g IR _I thank “Open Mind" for directing ■my attention to an error in my letter to yon of the 9th inat. He had not heard previously of the introduction of the Bible into the schools in Victoria. That is not surprising, as I understand it has not been introduced there. When X wrote you as if it had I made a blunder, and therefore I was not'justified in suggesting that Dr Fitchett s discovery of a new religion seemed to impl\ an unintentional recognition of the failure of the Bible in schools. I can do no more than apologise, and this I do very sincerely. I think, with Dr Fitchett, that men are trving to make a new God and a new religion, but. I am unable, to accept hr a diagnosis of the phenomenon. It seems to me' that the tenth and the seventh commandments recognised the existence of these two glad eyes long before the typical followers of the new religion couldl have been to Dr Fitchett a matter of concern. I wonder if Dr Fitchett means to imply that religion and morality are, at n lower ebb in Victoria than in other parts of Australia in which the Bible has been introduced into schools. If so is it a fact? H Melbourne is iess moral than Sydney, will the introduction of the Bible into the schools raise the morality of Melbourne to the standard of Sydney ? , 'T learn with regret that the Aery Rev. Dean Fitchett thinks I put the intelligence of the State school teacher too low tie appears to found this opinion «PO« "l»t ; 1 submit, is a confusion of thought (to cdopt his favourable phrase for the overthrow of an opponent). I use the phrase advisedly be•cau'e he, of all men, will understand ; its meaning. The “enlightened school master is told ley the Dean that ho would learn from the perusal of “a publication that has t-ic imprimatur of the Archbishop of Can ter bur. that the “books of the Bible contain scientific errors and mistaken history,- and the Stoiy of the Fall is a legend.” • • If the school teache.r is at liberty to teach children that the Bible contains scientific errors and mistaken history and that the story of the Fall is a legend, he would bs very foolish indeed to stand in the way of his own promotion by claiming the protection of a conscience clause. I think he knows that if he attempted to use Hebrew myths as he would disop’s Fables the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Canterbury would not , cave, him from the wrath of the Council of Christian Churches in Auckland. The Dean remarks that “Surely these things’’ (having the imprimatur of (he Archbishop) "are generally known.” I believe they arc, but I do not think that the clergy who know these tilings help much to spread the know- . ledge among their followers when leading a 1 Bihle-in-Schools crusade. I 1 leave it to the school teachers to decide ; whether 1 put their intelligence too low', it I is clear that the Dean and I do not inter- I pret* their honesty by' the same standard.—l ; am, etc., Eaha Mau. Dunedlin, March 18. ■ )