The Southland Times. PUBLISHED DAILY. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 19th NOVEMBER, 1884.

Southland Times, Issue 5089, 19 November 1884, Page 2

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED DAILY. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 19th NOVEMBER, 1884.

On Satu-daywe laid b fore our leaders tlie details of Mr A. Wihon's scheme ft r imparting religious instruction to the children in ( ur public schools. It will bt> remembered chat his proposal is to take half en hour in the morning from the time now devoted to gecu'ar teaching and permit during that half hour the representatives of the various churches to form classes of the children respectively belonging to them, and instruct them in religious truth. That this jlan, if properly and persistettly pursued, would lisve the effect of bringing before tbe majority of the children the maxims that lie at the foundation of their cuty, cannot be denied. And it caniot be objected to as exercis.ng any sort of coercion on tlie children, inasmuch as it is to be culy at the will of ther parents that they ere to be present duriiig the religious half hour. It is a part of the des : gn that while all the children mu-t be, at the time, within the school, those whose parents are averse to religious instruction of any kind bekg given would be engaged with secular lessons. All the children that can be ranked under the various den minations would te tatignfc daily what they ought to learn daily, and mi immense amount of good would be the result But it is to be remembered that our public schools con tain not only, on the one hand, children whose jarents b- long to the various religious sects, and on the other, thote whose parents are p sitiveh opposed to religion, but chi dien alsi.- whose parents are absolutely indifferent and would neither court nor object to religious teaching. As far as we axe inf rrned, Mr Wils n's scheme does not provide for this last class of yourjg people, and it would at once Trove a difficulty to determine into what ■ lapses they should be drafted. But leaving this point, we do not suppose it would be by any means so easy a business as Mr Wilson fupposes to find suitable teachers, either paid or unpaid, for the several classes of ti.e denominations. It would le a matter of extreme delicacy introducing into the schools those who were to exerij cisc some kind of authority there and 3 et who had no official standing, and none but a factitious relation to the schoolf. The presence of the school teachers to maintain discipline, and the presence of the others to give instruction, make almost as odd and unacademic a jumble as could very well be conc?i?ed. We re^

peat that to find and keep np a staff of teachers of the right stamp would prove a great practical difficulty, and it would be at great hazard that these were introduced into the schools with an authority, outside, as it were, of the authority that governed the ordinary schblastiorarrangements. There. would be the objection too that this would be in reality bringing sectarianism into tbe^schoola. It is to be noted that although the work would be done by the denominations, it would be done under the sanction and with -the . responsibility of the State. It would be .have become a part of State education to teach the creeds: Much as we desire to see religious teaching in the schools, we have to confes3 that this would be a religious teaching that, would go beyond the province of the State. Mr Wi!.-io;i pleads iv effect that anything short of his plan would be unfair to those whose religion did not recognise the Protestant Bib4e. But j ast as the Protestant Bible is that which the State acknowledges in innumerable other concerns 'as the only rule of faith aDd morals, so the same Bible must be the only authority it ought to acknowledge within the schools. The State, in the nature of the case, can have no responsibility to teach tbe Jewish religion or the Mahomednn religion, or any but the Christian religion. It is as a Christian State that it has any duty in the matter at all, and therefore it can be no objection to any system of religious instruction the State may provide that such does not include the. means of teaching all the religions that may find votaries in the community. We hold that tlie religion the State is bound to teach, when it takes education into its own hand, is Cb.ristian,'.but not sectariau or demoninational. And the only instrument for simply Christian teaching seems to be the Bible, read without note or comment. In this contention we are confronted by Mr Wilson's assertion that such reading " would, except in the " case of a few exceptional children, be " quite barren and unprofitable." We regret to be forced to differ altogether from Mr Wilson on this point, especially as he makes his statement on the strength of his experience as a teacher. But we cannot agree to put- the influence of the Biblp, when it is left to speak for itself, at this low estimate. It seems to us iv contradiction to all that that Book says about its own power. The great precepts of Scripture are easily understood and are independent of comment, i hey carry with them their own authority and their own iinpressiveuess, and we do not see how, being what they are, they tan fail to lodge themselves in the conscience of youth as they do in that of mature age. What we want to see is the introduction of the Bible into the schools, at the direct instance of the State, as a national acknowledgment of the authority of the Book, and this equally for the sake of the State and for the sake of the children. Tbe children should be mada to read the Bible themselves, and it should be the business of the teacher to listen while they do so. When Mr Wilson argues that making teachers parties to this reading " would " be applying a test to which in this " time of liberty of conscience it is ex- " tremely undesirable they should be " subjected," the answer is that the schools exist for the sake of the scholars and not for the sake of the teachers, and that a" prime benefit is not to be withheld from those because these feel that they cannot conscientiously bestow it. Mr Wilson is of opinion that the way to introduce denon>inatii,nalism and to shatter the State school system is tj introduce the Bible into the schools. We hold an fnlirtly opposite^sdew. Weieel absolutely certain thtt tEe national system of education will not long survive the exc'u-ioii of the Bible from the schools ; that it will eitber go to pieces from so radical a dtfut, or will be broken up Vy the denomiaationalism \o which that deftct will inevitably lead. We beiieve that to introduce the Bible will cave the system by savit g it from denomiiiationalifcm,wbich is the tnly alternath c. The pe-. pie are last I: ecomiLg convinced tbat education mutt include rebgion, and if the State education does not include it, they will take education iLto tfciirown hacd^ . They will clamor for detiouJ national *id end they wil] get it, or they will withdraw their children altogether from tchoois where nothing but secular instruction is given. Jn either case the doom of the Sta c sjstcm will be staltd. A concrete answer is to be found to all Mr Wilson's argum-.nts in the practice of tie Englirh and Scoitsh schools, uiid<r the control and receiving the cupport of the State. The Bib'e is read in these schools, and we are not to assume that it is retd with " quite 1 arren and cnprofit'ible results." There is no demand that we know of for credal teac 1 ing, and there is no sign of wh&t teaching there is ly means of the BUle shattf ricg the State sihool system of the two countries. Neither does it create Ihe bitunifSß and alienation that many predict as the sure result of introdi.cu g the Bii le. In short, the succeKs of the Engiifch and Scottish S ate schools is the standing atd incontrovertible reply to every objection that has been advanced agaimt the intr duction of the Bible into the State Schools of New Zealand.