THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS . CONTROVERSY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2669, 10 May 1905, Page 17

THE BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS . CONTROVERSY.

MANIFESTO BY THE STATE SCHOOLS DEFENCE LEAGUE. CONDEMNATION OF THE PROPOSED TEXT-BOOKS. CFeoh Ott:r Own" Cokbesposdeot.) WELLINGTON, May 2. The State Schools Defence League, the object of whicth is to maintain the present system of free, compulsory, and secular education in the primary schools, " as provided by the Education Act of 1877, is issuing an able manifesto on the subject of the Bible-in-schools text-book. I am indebted to Mr S. Arnold Atkinson, the lion, secretary of the league, for an' advance proof otf the manifesto, of which I give a summary. The league points out that " the reason why the Bible has been excluded from the curriculum of our public schools is not that the people of New Zealand, or any appreciable proportion of them, believe the Biblo to be a bad book, but because, while recognising it and revering it as the best of books, a majority of them consider that religion is a matter of which the State cannot undertake the teaching without violating fche rig-hts of conscience of many of its members, and that to attempt to teaoii the Bible, or any portion of it, in th© State schools would rend our educational system witji sectaria.n_ strife., from which ""t^Sfe^SfcSf^iffiS^fiF 1 tiie iorrn. or 'aehbrnSiationalism would he-, the only escape." The manifesto then deals with the promised text-book in" a severely critical manner. It points out that the suggestion that the lessons selected have no specifically

religious character, but merely embody the necessary basis of " all religious and all ethical teaching," is absolutely unwarranted, and can only be explained by entire ignorance either of the contents of the book itself or of the doubts and difficulties and differences with which the minds of good citizens and good Christians have long been agitated. Some striking omissions in the text-book are noted. Probably the most remarkable omission is that of the special lesson on " drunkenness a sin against God and our fellow-men, and a wrong and insult to ourselves," based on first Kings xx, 1-12. 16-21 ; Proverbs xxiii, 19-23, 29-35 ; and Isaiah xxviii, 1-7. No dogmatic or critical difficulties were raised by this lesson, and it is presumably from its relation to another burning question of the day which it is not for the lea.gue to discuss that the one lesson proposed by the Victorian Commission for the specific teaching, not of total abstinence, but of temperance, has been deemed unsuitable for the State schools of New Zealand. The difficulty of explaining the creation of the world in six days is dealt with at some length, and the Dean of Westminster is quoted in this connection as adverse to the literal interpretation. He is also quoted regarding tho origin of man as follows: — "The second chapter of Genesis no longer means to us that God moulded clay into a human figure and breathed upon ifc, or that he took a rib from Adam and made Eve. These and many other stories like that of the talking serpent and the talking ass we do not take, or at anyrate most of vs — I do not, — as literal statements of historical facts, but as imagery which clothes certain spiritual truths." (Times, October 17, 1904.) "The views thus boldly proclaimed by the Dean of Westminster," adds the manifesto, " may or may not be as general in his own Church as he declares, but his expression of them has certainly caused much pain to many of its members." It is then pointed out that the text-book takes the literol view that there is no comment, and that a child who learns the first lesson in the volume without contradictory or explanatory gloss will believe that the world was made in six days of 24hours each. Later scientific knowledge acquired, perhaps in physical geography lessons at the same school, may tea.en him something different, and it is obvious that if the foundation laid in his first religious lesson should be cut away the whole of the superstructure may be seriously imperilled also. The effect upon the teachers of the introduction oj such lesions into, the fcursi-

culum deserves to be more particularly considered. A conscientious teacher who, like the Dean of Westminster, is unable to accept the stories of the Creation, of the making of woman from the rib of man, and of her deception by the serpent, according to their literal meaning, will refuse to teach as the truth what he believes to be false, ans he must make way for a successor who is less critical, or perhaps less scrupulous in expressing the results of his criticism. Regarding the proposed conscience clause, which will give a teacher a theoretical proi tection in such a case, it is stated that though this provision would enable him to ! plead conscientious objection as a stifficient 1 excuse for declining to give the lesson, there j would be absolutely nothing to prevent the • Education Board, the school committee, and the parents from securing the removal of any teacher availing himself of the privilege, and therefore the practical operation of the clause would be as a religious test and nothing else. "Are we going," says the league, " to add the interpretation of Scripture to the duties of school committees and Education Boards, and heresy-hunts to be> their diversion?" The New Testament problem .and the element of miracle in connection with the text-book are dealt with at length in separate paragraphs. It is pointed out that some of the miraculous circumstances attending the birth of Jesus are* fully recorded, but not the virgin birth itself — an omission which has brought upon those responsible the charge of " Unitarian bia§," but is quite clearly to be justified by the unsuitableness of the subject-matter for children on physiological grounds alone. On the other hand, the narratives of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension are set out in full in three different versions. In conclusion, the league expresses the opinion that the broad minds, the tolerant and scholarly spirits, and th© worldly good •ense of the men who have shaped the party's recent declarations of policy have had very little <- to do with the shaping of this book. In the 10 years for which the agitation has lasted the party has never yet found time to devote any independent thought to the compilation of the text-book which is at once to revolutionise -our educational system and to give the mind of childhood its first introduction to the highest of all knowledge. They havo made two attempts to fill the gap, and in each case it is a ready-made and an imported article that has been relied upon for the purpose. In 1896 they borrowed from New South Wales the barbarous and

antiquated Irish Scripture Text-book, which, after a brief struggle, the indignant public opinion of this colony consigned to the dustheap, and the book which they have now accepted almost as blindly from "Victoria must go the same way. Each is a hopelessly impracticable attempt to solve an absolutely insoluble problem.