BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22135, 13 December 1933, Page 15

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

ADDRESS BY MR L M. ISITT MEETING IN Y.W.C.A. HALL. Under the auspices of the Dunedin Bible-in-Schools League, a meeting for women was held in the Y.W.C.A. hali yesterday afternoon. The Mayor (the Rev. E. T. Cox) presided, and Mr L. M. Isitt gave an address on “ The Greatest Menace to New Zealand.”

The Mayor, introducing the speaker, stated that Mr Isitt had been in the public life of this country for over half a century and had been prominent in its religious and moral development. About 20 years ago Mr Isitt had entered Parliament as the member for Christchurch North, and after retiring he had been appointed a member of the Legislative Council. He had always had the moral welfare of the country before him. He was the aggressive head of the Bible-in-Schools Movement, if not the actual head, and he was there to advance the interests of that movement.

Mr Isitt, in his opening remarks, said that he did not consider he was wrong in saying .that the Bible-in-Schools Movement was more important than anti-drink movements, than anti-gambling movements, than anti-immorality movements. It was even more important than foreign missions. They were dealing with a paramount evil in that it was a root evil. For more than half a century the present system of secular education had been in operation, during which time three generations of parents had grown up. When Parliament had passed the Bill enforcing the system, it not only closed the door against the Bible and religious instruction, but it blocked up the greatest avenue of religious education. There were remarkably few Sunday schools in the scattered districts of New Zealand. The people of the country had had to live on the religious knowledge they had brought with them., As the result of the impossibility of preserving this knowledge, they now had thousands of homes where children did not receive one word of, religious teaching from their fathers and mothers. In Feilding he had heard of the case of a woman who had not seen a Bible until she saw it in court on one occasion. He could go on quoting instance after instance of the direst ignorance that prevailed. One favourable sign was that business men were beginning to wake up, even though it might in some cases be only in their own selfish interests. They wanted people who knew the meaning of responsibility. What was the result of the purely secular system? An enormous increase in crime, particularly in juvenile crime. The speaker said that he was not going to allow himself to be led away by his own personal enthusiasm, but there had been a great lowering of the moral standard of the people which had not been wholly brought about as the result of the war. There had been an absolute loss of all sense of responsibility to God. There were 70,000 children still being taught under the present educational system, and these children were beifig flung into the world at the most plastic period of their lives. They were lacking in responsibility. It was small wonder that they drifted to religious indifference. To-day he was' not only asking his hearers to fight for leading those people out of the darkness c?f ignorance, but he was asking them to look after their own children, for they were moving in an atmosphere of no faith. Many of the churches were in favour of the Bill. In fact,-there were churches in New Zealand with 1,000,000 adherents which -were officially pledged to support the Bill. If they went on year by year under the present system, adding young men and young women to the commercial life of New Zealand, then they could expect terrible things. That system was not only a great menace to the spiritual and moral, future of the country, but it was also a definite menace to the economic future of the country. He could mention numbers of business men who would say “Amen ” to everything he had to say. There was a great deal of juvenile crime which never went into the courts. It was impossible to have widespread religious ignorance and business probity. To say that it was not the duty of the State to teach religion was. a miserable shuffle. It might also be asked whether any Government had a right to establish a system of education which precluded any possibility of the children getting religious instruction .'in their schools. Some people, the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists among them, had made an attempt to have religious instruction by erecting secondary schools of their own. About seven or eight years ago he, and a number of others had gone round and taken a plebiscite among the parents. After an interval of 60 years 80J per cent, of them had been in favour of religious instruction.

The proposed Bill provided that the schools should be opened with religious observances. These would consist in morning prayers arranged by the different churches concerned, the singing of a hymn, and the reading of a passage of Scripture without comment. Both the Bible manual and hymnal had to be approved by the Education Department before being adopted. i They did not want to force the work on the teachers. In the past they had asked the teachers to contract out if they did hot wish to give religious instruction, but now they asked them to contract in if they were willing to do so. The teachers would not be permitted to push their own views, but only basic principles would be taught. Mr Isitt concluded by asking all those present to give their help in every possible way. The meeting closed with a hearty vote of thanks to the speaker.