THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, 6th MAY, 1005. THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS QUESTION.

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 6 May 1905, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, 6th MAY, 1005. THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS QUESTION.

We regard with unfeigned satisfaction the manifesto issued by the State Schools Defence League ircm Wellington during the week, and wc estimate its importance more highly because two headmasters of Inrgt Wellington schools and an ex-chair-man of the Educatian Board ere included among the oflice-bearers ol the League. Before passing to the main question we may say that the lead given to the public senooi teachers by their Wellington confreres was badly needed. The teachers as a whole have exhibited a timidity in connection with this question that contrasts anything but favourably with the boldness they usually show in discussing matters that affect them. The teachers must realise that the proposal to introduce Bible reading into the schools has a serious import foi them. However successful the attempt to produce a non-controver-sial text book may be, on howeveii the teacher may be protected by a conscience clause, it is impossible to imagine that the Bible can be '.ntro-ducc-d in any form without imposing something like a religious test upon teachers and introducing a new elomen't into their qualifications. The manifesto of the State Schools Defence League makes this quite clear, we think, and we are glad that the warnings qf the press to those engaged in the education service have been strengthened by thia movement. The Wellington teachers having taken that action in defence of then rights to which justice and our free constitution entitles them, it is to be hoped that their brothers and sisters in other parts of the colony who feel that they should not be hampered in their profession by the trammels of religion l , will not be less courageous. In the discussion ol this matter the teachers have a perfect right to take part, inasmuch as it is proposed to submit the decision to the public! who should have beore them the views of those upon whom their decision will mainly operate. Now that an organisition, having for its object the protection of our secular system, has directly joined issue with the Bible-in-Schools party, wo confidently expect to see, teachers and t.hoio engaged in the administration of education put their opinions into the common stock.

The manifesto of the State Schools Defence League succinctly states tho objection -to the introduction of tho Bible into tho schools. It is not because the Bible .is, not a book to be believed in, or that its Almighty God is a myth. Those who r.pposo the Bible-in-schools moveme it arc not necessarily sceptics or atheists. Many of them gather strength for their opposition from their devout Christianity. The ground of .vbijection is broadly, “ that religion, is a matter of which the State cannot undertake the teaching without v relating the rights of conscience-, of many of its members, ’ and that to attempt to teach the Bible or any portion of it in the State schools would rend our educational system with sectarian strife from which its disintegration in the form of denomipationalism would be the only escape.” While maintaining that tho addition of Bible reading to rhe'uurriculum of the State schools would lead inevitably to denominational cleavages in the schools, we have al-

ways gone further and‘insisted that j if no sue’’ results followed, tho movement should bo opposed l.ecauso the State would commit an irreparable and mischievous error if it relieved the parent from his responsibility in this matter. In spiritual matters the obligation to guard tho welfare of the young rests upon tho parents and the Christian Church, and no amount of argument will prove that it is necessary in order that men may li”o their mortal lives together as enlightened moral and political communities, that tho State should undertake the care oi the spiritual and Unmortal side oi man, especially as It does not matter to the State whether a man is a Mohammedan or a Unitarian, a Buddhist or a Dowieite, »o long as he_is an orderly, industrious,' and useful citizen. When we .-emember, further, that the spiritual side of our nature is the subject o', immemorial controversy, and that at the present day there are countless theories and creeds, both in religion and morality, we can see clearly that ;t woulh be inexpedient, even if it were permissible, for the State to enter upon religious teaching, A man’s religious beliefs have nothing to do with his public life, and his demand is not that tho State shall teach him in respect to them, but that it shall not interfere. It. lies eolely with himself and ultimately the ■ jspdiisibility, and the punishment or the reward, will rest with himself. Under Christianity the parent and the Church must also acknowledge obligations, but the State none, and were the State to gratuitously step beyond its province and accept duties ■which do not pertain to its nature or constitution the result would be that parents at least would feel themselves relieved of responsibility and religion would ultimately suffer. On these grounds, while wo credit the advocates of the Bible-in-sdtools with all sincerity and disinterestedness we affirm that they are really working against the end they desire to attain. The State Bible would tend to lower and weaken Christian devotion in tho real sense, therefore it would be' a religious blunder. As all who read the recent pronouncements of the .Catholic Bishops must concede it would result in tile destruction of our free compulsory and sedular education by denominationalism, and would therefore occasion political disaster. In addition to these grounds we take the stand that the question is not one for decision by a referendum or a. vote of the people. The referendum idea has been given altogether unwarrantable encouragement in New Zealand, thanks to an opportunist Premier and a Parliament that is only too glad to accept any avenue of escape from the necessity ; of deciding a momentous question

itself. It looks so genuinely citinocratic to refer a question to iho ballot box with some grandiloquent remarks on the virtue of ‘‘ trusting the people,” but in many instances, and the Bible-in-schools question is one of them, it is a pusillanimous and contemptible way of shirking responsibility. In what touches the individual conscience and not the State, the State has no right to interfere, either through Parliament or through the ballot box. On that ground alone Parliament would be justified in refusing to entertain 1 the Biblc-in-schools proposal in any form whatever, and when to that ground is added the imperative duty of protecting the State education system from anything that threatens its security, we can admit no excuse for dallying with this question at all. In so far as it fails to take account of this aspect of the question, the manifesto of the State Schools Defence League is wanting.

The manifesto subjects the proposed text-book to a lengthy and destructive examination, which w« need not follow in detail. It points out the curious omission from -the • text-book of the lesson against drunkenness liased on several passages of Scripture, a lesson devoid ol dogmatic or critical difficulties, and yet of the greatest importance. Turning to the difficulties that nay bo expected to arise from what is included, the problem of the creation is touched upon. It is pointed out that the literal acceptance of the story of Genesis (which is not now insisted upon by any church, wo should Imagine) would naturally follow from the lesson of the textbook. The - child would naturally believe that the world was made in six days of twenty-four hours each. “ Later,” says the manifesto,

“ scientific knowledge, acquired, perhaps, in physical geography lessons at the same school, may teach him something difi’erent, and it is obvious that if the foundations laid in his first religious lesson should be cut away the whole of the superstructure may be seriously imperilled also.” The force of this cannot bo gainsaid. Then the questions of tha Saviour’s birth, life, and death, also suggest themselves, and in- this ccnnection the cables have apprised us of a widespread movement in the Anglican Church, of which we are waiting fuller particulars by mail. The state of flux and fluidity in which even orthodox belief, or should we say doubt, is at the present time in -regard to these very questions, proves how fatuous it is to suppose that Bible lessons dealing with them can be given without comment and explanation. The proposed textbook, indeed, will not bear analysis, and its failure to come up io the character claimed for it, viz., that it has no specifically religious character, but merely embodies the necessary basis q.f ” all religious tied all ethical teaching,” clinches the case against the Bible In schools. The manifesto greatly strengthens the cause of our secular education system, and we sincerely hope that it will be widely studied, and that in view of the coming fight the f; (ate Schools Defence League will steadily increase in numbers and influence.