PREACHER TERMS ANTI-GOD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 101, 2 May 1938, Page 6

PREACHER TERMS ANTI-GOD

EDUCATION ACT AMENDMENT PERIOD OF WORSHIP FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS ITS SUGGESTED DELETION CRITICISED Preaching from the pulpit of Trinity Methodist Church last night, th® Rev. Raymond Dudley, M.A., vigorously denounced the Education? Amendment Bill on which a special committee has heard evidence. Th# preacher said that the Bill proposed to prohibit the short religious service now permissible in primary schools ofi the Dominion, and he referred to that aspect as being anti-God legislation. “Reverence of God is life's supremW duty,” he said. “Man cannot live bread alone. The Prime Minister ha® often quoted those words of Chris*, but it all seems to be colossal bluff, and a lot of mummery. What right-! ful place does God possess in the primary education system of our land? Where are the schools where religious instruction is regarded as a right and not as a privilege? Where is one Minister of the Cabinet who is prepared to stand with Dr. Cyril Nor-' v ood, the former headmaster of Har« row and Marlborough, and now president of St. John’s College, Oxford, and declare: ‘Religion and education are bound together?’ And is that nnj true?”

Reverence for God “Reverence for God is an ignored] factor to-day. There is war being waged against God the world over. “Small wonder that reverence for God is not officially popular in our land to-day and is greeted by active and bitter opposition. Sixty years j ago, Parliament decreed that our pri-, mary education should be secular and by ‘secular’ what was meant, some assert, was not non-religious but nonsectarian. But be that as it may, subsequent Parliaments endorsed the operation of the 1877 Act. Since then, however, certain changes were allowed whereby, without interfering with actuai school hours, religious instruction could be granted for half an hour per week, provided sanction was obtained from both the education hoard and the school committee conI cerned. Latterly, nearly 400 schools, i in addition, were granted the requisite permission to commence daily 1 with not religious instruction but re- | ligious worship, which consists of n. I five-minute service of a call to worship, a hymn, a prayer, and a brief passage of scripture. Even though the time of worship, like the weekly period of religious instruction, doe.w not encroach upon Ihe period legally prescribed for each school day, yet it is Intended Io prohibit children from commencing their day with religious exercises.” Aims of Education Bill ‘The Government, by its proposed Education Amendment Bill, aims at unifying the control of all secondary, technical, and primary schools in the Dominion, but though daily religious worship has been an institution in. the State’s secondary and technical schools since their inception (not merely in church schools and board schools and private schools, but in State secondary schools), yet. it is proposed to prohibit such religious exercises for our primary children.” continued the Rev. Dudley. “Secondary schools may conduct such worship but that primary school teachers, who are as much paid servants of the State, are forbidden so to do, we mav well lift our eyes in wonder. Could anything more absurd and anomalous be imagined? In effect, the Government., by its proposed Bill, says to local authorities, ‘Have your dances and card parties, your concerts and Sunday tennis, but if you allow your buildings to be used for daily religious worship it will be an offenc® against the law of the land.’ “During recent months we have heard much from representatives of *4 the Government regarding its love of liberty and its recognition of the rights of individual men and \somen. But where is there any practical manifestation of such love and such recognition when, In our educational policy, to mention naught else, we read of proposed encroachments upon the powers and duties of education boards and school committees? Where is there any democraicy in th* stern refusal of the present Government, and past Governments, too, to allow Bible instruction into the syllabus of our day schools when, according to many teachers, the majority of parents are in favour of it? What are the influences, sinister or otherwise, preventing the State from holding a referendum on this question if it would indubitably be assured of th® will of its people? “Will I>ea<l to Dictatorship* “All this is merely another of the many attempts to restrict our hard won and long cherished liberty and to bring the citizens of this land under the sway of a system which, unless its leaders be guarded, must inevitably lead to tyranny and dictatorship. “Opening daily devotional exercisea, however brief, together with religious instruction by teachers (and not merely by visiting clergy), as an integral part of the school curriculus, must unfailingly prove to child minds that religion is not something extrinsic but a normal and natural experience. “And that is what it is. It is not merely for the first or the seventh day of the week; not solely for the cloister or the sanctuary; the altar or the pew, but for a seething world of activity and life; for the artist as well as artisan; for mistress and servant, too; for merchant, clerk, and operative; for teacher, and scholar, alike. “Why then these obstructive Governmental measures? Why this aggressive crusade to close the doors of our schools against the rightful and holy approach of God’s Presence? “If it is good enough,” he said, “for our House of Representatives to open its daily sessions with prayer, then it should be good enough for all our schools to do likewise. If it is right for our Monarch, at his Coronation, to accept the Book of all books, then it is surely the inalienable right of our children to receive its instruction formally in their schools.”