The Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1910. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9954, 16 September 1910, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1910. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

A correspondent from Dunediii has accepted our invitation to furnish a .sound argument in favour of the introduction of Bible lessons in State schools. With most of what he has to say about the Bible as literature there will be no quarrel. If selected passages were to be included in the reading books and treated as pure literature, there would, we imagine, be little room for complaint. But, even if we admit everything that our correspondent has to say about the advantages of a know-' ledge of the Bible as a necessary part of a liberal education, we should still be far from accepting the view; of the Bible-in-Schools Tarty. The trouble is that the people who are making such strenuous efforts to have Bible lessons introduced into the State schools do not care twopence about the Bible as literature. What they are seeking is the reading and the teaching of the scriptures as an aid to religion. Our correspondent is a Scot, with a full measure of appreciation of the good qualities of his countrymen, an appreciation which, being patriotically prejudiced ourselves, we are bound to endorse. The Scots are all Mr Stewart says they are, and there may be some reason for supposing that they are what they are because of the liberal doses of Bible which they were compelled to take with their oatmeal, or perhans because of the oatmeal which they took with their Bible. But Mr Stewart ought to know that they took their Bible, like their oatmeal, mainly in their own homes. Boligious teaching in day schools has always seemed to us to bo like sleeping in trarncars. Sleep is very necessary to • man, but the traracar is scarcely tho place for it. The parsons are telling- us, we know, that if religion is not taught in the schools it will not be taught at all; and there may be some people who have to sleep in the cars because they cannot sleep elsewhere. But the managers on that account are not likely to provide beds and rugs in tho trams. The analogy may be tar-fetched, but it sufficiently illustrates the point wo are tryj ing to make, which is that tho schools I provided by the State are intended for the instruction of the children in tho necessary elements of a secular education, and not for the teaching of theology. Nothing that our correspondent I has to say meets the initial objection to the programme of the Bible-in-Schools Party. He quotes the catse of Spain, to show what happens to a country in which the Bible is withheld from the people. As a matter of fact, if Spain illustrates anything at all, it illustrates what may happen to a country in which the Church has control of the education system. There is no talk of keeping back the Bible in this country. The Book can be bought lor Courpence. Indeed, there is not a publication of any kind that is more readily or more cheaply available. Our correspondent's idea, apparently, is that if the Bible were read in the schools the nation might be led back to the earnest simplicity of the Puritan life. The hope is a vain one; A comparison of the people of New South Wales, where the

''bio is read regularly in the schools, .vith th>: people of New Zealand, where the education system is wholly secular, is not at all to the disadvantage of the Xew Zealanders. The New South Welshmen are just as fond of pleasure, of tho good things of life, and of the vanities as are the Xew Zealanders, a) ul wo arc still looking for an argument that would justify us in adopting the Xew South Welsh system. We dare .-:■,>• that, man for man, tho Xew Zealanders know ihe liiblo as well, or as ill. :i-; -to their uci:.,hbours acre-- iiie