FACTS WANTED.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXV, Issue 13055, 25 April 1910, Page 4

FACTS WANTED.

We have received a copy of a circular issued by the Wellington Householders’ League in the "interests of Biblc-reading in schools, ■ and which is being forwarded to be read at the various School Committee meetings this evening. The following statement'is made in the circular; “For thirty-three years the present secular system of education has been In operation, and as a result a large proportion of our young population is practically heathen. Family life is out of date, contagious diseases are spreading, the birth-rate is falling, and the death rate is rising. The remedy is to give the children a high ethical, training, so as to develop the faculty of self-control, and the ethics of Christianity will effect the object more surely than any other system.” We do not ■ intend to discuss the merits or de-merits of Bible-reading in schools, but simply to point out that the above statement is misleading. As a matter of fact, the number of deaths from, the diseases which the circular refers to (and we quote from the New Zealand Year Book) were considerably less last year than they wore 15 or 20 years ago. Likewise the assertion that the birth-rate is falling and the death-rate is rising is quite contrary to fact. The birth-rate in New Zealand during the last teu years lias risen from 25.12 per 1000 of the population to 27.45, and the deathrate for 1908 (the latest official Year-Book returns) was lower than for ten years previously, and the lowest in Australasia. It is a pity the Wellington Householders’ League could not stick to facts.