RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Otago Witness, Issue 3335, 13 February 1918, Page 22

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

ADDRESS BY MR A. G. BUTCHERS. -Yesterday Mr A. G. Butchers, the recently appointed principal of the John M'Glashan College fo* boys, waited on the Dunedin Presbytery and briefly outlined the ideals which he proposed to set before the school. In the course of a brief address he made some interesting references to the question of religious education and to conditions in Victoria, where he was for six years head master of the Ararat High School. Mr W. Gow/>who introduced Mr Butchers to the Presbytery, said he was quite sure Mr Butchers would be a valuable acquisition to the educational section of this community. Tho Moderator (the Rev. J. Millar) formally welcomed Mr Butchers in the name of the Presbytery. Mr Butchers returned thanks for the cordial welcome he had received in this country, and from the Presbytery in particular. Mrs Butchers and he had felt that the call to the work they had undertaken was a distinct call from God. His whole heart and soul were in the work. He had found that the state of the Government schools in this country was not nearly so anti-religious, he might say, as it was in Victoria. < While his service of six years under the Victorian Education Department had been most useful, it had been in many ways a most trying time. For two years he _ opened his school with prayer and the singing of a hymn, but after this came under the notice of the authorities even that slight recognition of the Almighty was forbidden, and he had to discontinue it. Conditions like that were extremely awkward, and robbed tho teacher of the one thing essential in the education of boys and girls. Tho appeal > to Christianity, as seen in the life and teaching of our Lord, was the most potent thing in the education of young people, and when the teacher was asked to do his work without that power it was like asking a man to build a brick house without cement. The Board of Governors of the John M'Glashan College, at a meeting the previous evening, had agreed to make very considerable concessions indeed to tho sons of ministers coming to the college. He thought that was a wise step*. Tho hearty co-operation of the ministers and the Board of Govornors and himself was essential to the development of the college. It was a Church school, and it would be an anomaly if tho sons of ministers were barred from it by lack of funds. He felt very strongly that this hranoh of education was a branch of Church work, and that it might be commended to all the ministers of tho Presbytery to devoto perhaps a Sunday to the discussion in the pulpit of this work of Christian education as a distinct and definite branch of the Church's work. Protestant churches, at any rate, had stood by during the past decade while another section of tho Christian Church had put its shoulder to the wheel and worked strongly and without oomment on the one side; and on tho other side that section of the community opposed to all reliffion had been working equallv stronglv. Tho policy of tho Church in Victoria had been largely to stand aside and wait and see. The 'wait-and-see' policy was a disastrous one, beoause the secularising of tho schools over there was proceeding apace, and it was very_ doubtful if the romedy would ever be applied. There was only one remedy that he could see, and that was to restore the Biblo into the schools. He could see nothing else for it. Tho purpose of the school of which he had the honour to take charge was to train all the boys -Who passed through their hands to a sense of high calling and a determination to achieve as high a position as thov possibly could and then to utilise that high position to further the interests of the Church. Already the enrolments were coming in, and already they had every prospect of fully occupying the present boarding accommodation almost from the very start. From tho first he wanted every hoy to feel that he was not poins: out into lifo to become an ordinary citizen, but as a missionary tc achieve a high place in the world, and then repay what had been done for him by vising the maximum influence he could securo to. further the influence of the Church in every walk of lifo and to permeate the civilian life of the community with Christian principles. Ho felt that he could not undertako his work if he could not rely upon the blessinsr of God and tho SturtW support—moral and financial—of the Church and of all Christian folic throughout this territory. The Rev. A. Whyte moved a cordial vote of thanks to Mr Butchers for his address.'— The Rev. W. Gray Dixon seconded the motion, which WM carried unanimously. The Rev. A. Whyte further moved that ministers he recommended to take an early opportunity of bringing the whole subject of roli'sriou* •""'nes'tion. - nwl partieulariv of tho John M'Glashan Collccre. before their congreerivtions. This motion njso was seconded by Mr Dixon and carried.