FIGHT TO CONTINUE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17918, 24 October 1932, Page 4

FIGHT TO CONTINUE

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS CRITICISM OF OPPONENTS (Per Press Association.) MASTERTON, last night. The Rev. E. 0. Blamires, secretary of the Bible-in-Schools League, referred from the pulpit this evening to the suspension, for a short time, of the Biblc-in-Schools Bill. The absence of one supporter, through illness, had, ho said, made the voting equal arid the casting vote of "the chairman had rendered all efforts of-no avail. A reply had been- made by opponents to the demand of parents that their children • should- have religious instructions in school that they were in entire support of tho Nelson system and, yet, when challenged to legalise tho Nelson system, they had refused and turned down the following definition submitted to them by Sir James Allen: "The Nelson system shall mean the system of religious instruction in which children whose parents desire them to participate are released from sefcular instruction otherwise given in order to attend classes conducted by voluntary instructors and teachers approved by a school committee; such classes must not bo held during the few hours required daily for secular instruction under the provisions of the principal ActTho Nelson system in Victoria referred to by the Minister of Education as the Nelson system is in school hours and the Minister held up the Victorian scheme for approval. It was difficult to reconcile tlio strong support of the Nelson and Victorian systems in tlio speeches of those opposed to the bill and I heir subsequent refusal to support it. by their votes. The secularists’ blockade was getting steadily weaker and their unscientific attitude towards tlio nature of the child would prove their undoing. This latest refusal to endorse the Nelson system as defined would galvanise parents into greater activity in their support, of the reasonable demands of the. hill.