RELIGION AND EDUCATION

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1935, Page 5

RELIGION AND EDUCATION

VIEWS OF ARCHDEACON. “There can be no possible divorce between religion and education, the two great powers in human life,” said the Ven. Archdeacon F. G. Evans when speaking at the West End school jubilee service yesterday afternoon. “There is no such thing as a godless education, for surely what stimulates the characters of scholars and grown-ups towards goodness and faith or greatness and knowledge of all kinds cannot be godless.” For many years, he continued, he had advocated the saying of the Lord’s Prayer by the scholars at the beginning of morning school, with a reading of a’ short portion of Scripture by the Ll®! 1 k> teacher, without comment, and a collect afterwards. He regretted very much that this was not allowed in primary schools as he considered it meant a profound loss to the young people of the Dornin- • ion. After all, rfost people were to a, certain extent religious. Religion, said the archdeacon, was, briefly the stirring up of the Spirit of God in boys and girls, men and women.If encouraged^' this would produce' the • voice of conscience, unselfishness,-,gener-osity, honesty and love of fellow men. All these were spiritual qualities '•of'immediate importance in all their ’ lives, They were indeed lost on a limitless ocean if they had no religion. . 4