BIBLE READING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3928, 19 July 1937, Page 8

BIBLE READING

EFFECT ON SECULARISM IN SCHOOLS. “Twenty-six per cent of the indictable offences in England in the year 1935 were committed by persons under 17 years of age. A percentage of these doubtless passed through the church schools, but this distressing evidence of juvenile depravity hardly goes to prove that the youth of to-day is absorbing high ethical standards through the medium of rationalistic teaching. “Others will assure us that it is quite fallacious to imagine that adequate religious instruction is not given in council schools. In reply, I range myself on the side of those who hold that a perfunctory Bible reading conducted by those who, but for an inadequate course at a normal college or elsewhere, have no specific qualification to teach religion, or by those definitely hostile to religion, is at its best a waste of time. “Taking all sides of the problem into due consideration, there can be no doubt whatever that spiritual influences have failed to keep pace with the exigencies of a rapid industrial development, and that the religious side of the education of youth in this country is swiftly being superseded by a purely utilitarian and mundane training. A very large percentage of teachers in the State-aided s'chools no doubt console themselves with the reflection that it is possible to inculcate a high ethical standard in the young without the aid or the basis of any dogmatic religious teaching, although statistics, whatever their value may be to anyone else, are certainly not conspicuously on their side.”. —The Hon. Edward Cadogan, C. 8., in “The Roots of Evil.”