RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23615, 27 September 1938, Page 4

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS

10• THE EDITOR Sir,—l find that it is not generally known that no Labour candidate for Parliament can vote for bible in schools in Parliament because the Labour Party’s platform has two planks which are opposed to Bible reading in the schools. It favours a referendum on all subjects except Bible in schools; and. like the Communists in Russia, it stands for education without the Bible. This is rather remarkable because the following democratic countries have taken referenda on Bible in schools, viz., Switzerland, Queensland, Arkansas, and California. The leading educationists of the world and leading evolutionists in the world have declared for Bible reading in schools in the interests of character building, and because of the value of the Bible as great literature. Labour candidates, when questioned at their meetings, usually reply that the children should go to Sunday school for Bible lessons when they well know that poor workers’ children in many cases cannot go to Sunday school because they have no Sunday clothes; others say the child should receive us religious instruction at its mother’s knee, when common sense asserts that these lessons learned at the mother’s knee should be confirmed by the Bible lessons learned in the school. How many mothers have the time to teacn their children the Ten Commandments? —I am. etc., Wellington. New Zealander.