RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13745, 7 September 1908, Page 7

RELIGION IN SCHOOLS.

JN THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW.

While a referendum of parents is being taken in New Plymouth to decide whether Bible instruction is to be given at the Central School, it is interesting to learn tho latest events in the contest between religious und secular education in the Old World. The Secularists at Homo have been greatly rejoiced by a piece of news from Home. The elementary schools in Home aro under the control of the Municipal Council, and for some years past there has been an agitation going on among the citizens for the removal of religious teaching from their syllabus. The agitation has not attracted a great deal ot attention outside tho city itself, but a Router's telegram announces that it has been success! ul, and that henceforth the education imparted in the elementary schools will' bo strictly secular.

This does not moan, as some of the Secularists assume it does, that the religious sentiment is less intense in Home than it is in some other Italian cities. Tho Hunisin Catholic Church has always been, opposed to religious teaching being undertaken by laymen, and probably it will find in the decision of the Municipal Council a wider field for the operations of its own organisations. It is a little curious that at the- very moment that this piece of news is being circulated our own Education Boards are showing themselves distinctly more favourably . disposed towards the admission of some form of religious teaching into the primary schools. Mr A. H. Vile, a member of tho Welling-, ton Education Board, has collected a number of opinions from the Boards on the proposal -to display the Ten Commandments on the walls of the schools, and has been encouraged to propose that the necessary expense of this small instalment of moral instruction should be borne by the State. Here are some of the replies that have been received to a circular letter addressed to the Boards: — Hawke's Bay Board — "Any school committee has the permission of the Board to exhibit the Ten Commandments in class rooms." Auckland 'Board — "Offers no objection to the Ten Commandments being displayed in schools." South Canterbury Board — ''Is willing to allow Ten Commandment sheets to be exhibited if committees are agreeable." Otago Board — "Propose to obtain legal opinion." North Canterbury Board — "Approve of the Ten Commandments being hung, leaving with school committees to act if they feel disposed." These replies are all distinctly "safe," particularly the one from the Otago Board ; but they tend to show that the fear of tlie schools being captured by tho churches is less in evidence than it was a fewyears ago.