RELIGION IN STATE SCHOOLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 409, 18 July 1928, Page 8

RELIGION IN STATE SCHOOLS

Sir, The wild appeals and extravagant language used by speakers in favour of Bible in Schools at the Town Hall on Sunday reminded me of a statement made long ago by Lord Morley. It was as follows: “Parents have an inalienable right to choose the kind of religious instruction that their children shall receive. No one disputes that. Our simple contention is that along with that right of choosing their religious instruction goes the duty of paying for it. . If I say to a parent, ‘Your child shall not be allowed to receive instruction in Catholic or Baptist doctrine,’ I am a tyrant. If the parent should say to me, ‘I insist that you should pay for instructing my child in doctrines which you do not accept.’ then it is he who is the tyrant Yet nothing less than this is involved in the present educational system (religion in schools). We are teaching the religion of some with the money raised by the taxation of all. Writers for newspapers, who hav© not always time to think about the terms they

use, have the face to insist that we aate for depriving tire majority of the community of the right of giving their children a religious education. . . . What w e really seek is to deprive the majority of the right of making the minority pay for giving this religious education to other people’s children.” This extract contains in short compass a very complete and logical reply to the present Bible in Schools agitators. A.E.C.