Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 10529, 17 December 1912, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17. EDITORIAL NOTES.

IN regard to the question of the Bible in Schools, the argument of its advocates that it will not be compulsory overlooks what would happen. It would be inevitable that children whose parents objected to them receiving this instruction would bo “marked” and be regarded by the others as inferior, thus setting up religious differences among the children themselves at an age when they should not be distracted in such a manner. It is easy to imagine what would bo the feelings of these outcasts. We observe that many other newspapers are stoutly endeavouring to secure the maintenance of the secularity of our State system of education, and we believe that public opinion which is not biased by the specious arguments of the advocates of the new movement is strongly against any interference with-the present j system, which has worked so well j and so peacnbly. The Wairarapa Age, in a lengthy article on the sub- i ject, after pointing out ' that the I great mass of the public have not displayed any enthusiasm in regard i to it, says that even assuming that the question had been a burning one for years there remains the over-

whelming plea that on matters pertaining to conscience the majority has no moral right*to dictate to the minority. Let ns assume, |for a moment, that the majority in the land were Mohammedans or Buddhists, as they are in India. Would the Christian community submit to a plebiscite on the question of whether their religious dogma was to be permitted in the schools.' 1 Or, if the majority were infidels, or freethinkers, would the Church, An those circumstances, be prepared to take a referendum on the question of whether the tenets of agnosticism should form part of the school curricula? Most assuredly not. But, coming back to the main consideration of Bible-teachiug in the abstract. Why is it considered necessary to impart religious instruction in the State schools? Do our Churches admit that their efforts to direct the minds of the young into religious channels have absolutely failed? If they do not, why do they seek the aid of the State in the matter? It is a remarkable, but none the loss striking coincidence that while a small section of the people in the overseas possessions are striving to insert the thin end of the wedge of denominationalism into our system of education —for that is what Bible reading assuredly means —the evils of denominational teaching are so apparent in the Motherland that the people are clamouring for the introduction of the secular system. But, someone will say we have already admitted the right of denominational teaching, by permitting the Roman Catholics to have separate schools? Yes. the State has undoubtedly sanctioned denominational teaching to this extent. But it has placed no obstacle in the way of the Anglicans or the Nonconformists having similar institutions. If the Protestants desire denominational schools, let them provide them, and maintain them in the same way as do the Roman Catholics. It would he intolerable, however, if the State were to subsidise the Protestants, as it is proposed to do under the Bible-in-schools system, partly at the ex* pense of the Roman Catholic community, and refuse a similar subsidy to the Roman, or Mormon, or other separate institutions. Moreover, harmless though the text book might be, it is impossible to give complete extracts from the Bible that would satisfy the whole of tiie dissenting Churches, let alone the Roman Catholics, who represent a not inconsiderable section of our school attendance, It will be urged that the conscience clause would meet objections under this heading. But how would such a clause operate when the sole teacher in a school was a Roman Catholic, or a Jew, or an Agnostic? Are we going to compel the whole of our teachers to be Protestants and Christian believers? | Such a proposition is unthinkable.