BIBLE TEACHING IN SCHOOLS

Southland Times, Issue 23827, 26 May 1939, Page 8

BIBLE TEACHING IN SCHOOLS

STEADY DEVELOPMENT ADDRESS BY ORGANIZING SECRETARY The steady development of Bible teaching in the public schools was referred to by the Rev. E. O. Blamires, organizing secretary of the New Zealand Bible-in-Schools League, in an address in the Ythan street hall last night. Pastor V. C. Stafford was chairman. There was a good attendance. In the last 12 years the number of pupils receiving Bible teaching had increased by 400 per cent. Mr Blamires paid a tribute to the work of visiting clergymen and others through whom a big part of this valuable service was given, and to the staff teachers whose willing co-operation was a feature acknowledged with appreciation. , “Under the Nelson system half an hour’s religious instruction is given weekly in more than 900 schools,” said Mr Blamires. “All the education boards grant facilities and seven out of nine grant an extension of the Nelson system whereby the school day can be opened by a few minutes’ worship.” This was now in vogue in about 400 pj-imary schools, including a number of backblocks schools too far off the beaten track to be regularly visited by clergymen.

The use of a gramphone enabled the audience at last night’s address to hear the recorded service as given in the Auckland Normal school, and in one of the Dunedin schools. The chanting of the Lord’s Prayer by what was virtually a children’s choir of 400 voices, the singing of a hymn, the reading of a short Bible selection by a senior scholar, and the closing doxology showed most effectively the possibilities of these opening observances by children thoroughly trained to carry through the various parts. In Auckland, the teachers, though present, conducted no part of the service, which was controlled by the pupils, said Mr Blamires. In Dunedin the head master read the Scriptures.

“It was decidedly pleasing,” he said, “to find that where these opening observances have been arranged, the staff teachers have expressed warm approbation, and many of them have volunteered to give strong supporting testimony in favour of their continuance and extension. School committees and education boards have also been favourably impressed.” The whole of the North Island schools could now arrange to have them introduced wherever the school committee consented and the same applied to Canterbury and Otago. In an illustrated lecture entitled, “How we got our Bible,” Mr Blamires traced the history of writing and printing from the days when the early Egyptians used reed pens and vegetable ink on papyrus leaves, and the Hebrews provided parchment rolls, to the time when early British and Irish scholars used to write out and ornament portions of the Latin Vulgate, followed by Wycliffe’s translation of the Old and New Testaments in English in 1384. The discovery of printing and its introduction into England by William Caxton was illustrated, together with the many versions which culminated in the authorized version of 1616. The revised version of 1884 and the many translations of today were freely illustrated, and the lecturer concluded by saying that the story of the Bible in English was being re-enacted in many parts of the world today.

“The world’s ‘best seller’ is now translated into more than a thousand different languages,” said Mr Blamires, “and it is circulating in many millions of copies yearly. Not to know the contents of the Bible is to confess to a lop-sided education, out of touch with some of the chief activities of human life.”