BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17413, 28 May 1928, Page 5

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

OBJECTS OF THE LEAGUE.

GREATER BUPPORT EVIDENT.

LEADER'S VIGOROUS ADDRESS. iAb eloquent address on the Bible-in-Schools question was given by Hon. L. M. Isitt, before a. fairly large audience in the Strand Theatre last evening. On the platform were representatives of most denominations, His Lordship Bishop Cherrington being in the chair. Introducing the speaker, Bishop Cherrington said the objects of the Bible-in-Schools League could be summarised as follows: To allow school children to sing a hymn, to say the Lord’s Prayer, and to have read to them a portion of the Bible. Yet the attitude of the opponents to this scheme led him to believe the nation was barely emerging from heathenism. Personally he did not support the Bill because he thought its scope was not wide enough. However, many Hamilton clergymen had started the Nelson system which was meeting with considerable success. “Few people realise the enormous injury done to the secular system through the lack of scriptural teaching in the schools,” said Mr Isitt. “The reform we are urging is a dire need and the absence of religious instruction through the channels of State schools is a menace to the future of Christendom. I have made this statement elsewhere and I will make it again. I challenge anybody to contest the truth of what I say now: In New Zealand nearly every church is sending missionaries to foreign lands to the heathen while in their own country tens of thousands are growing up under heathen conditions, uninformed and entirely ignorant of religious matters.” Since the original Bill, introduced do the House over 50 years ago by Sir William Fox, continued the speaker, many amendments had been made 1 to over-ride ell objections. But for the disapproval of the Roman Catholic Church the Bill would have been carried years ago. The Catholics wanted nothing less than State grants to their own schools, ’ they objected to certain sections of the Lord’s Prayer; and to the “Protestant Sectarian Bible.” Government statistics showed that in this country there were Christian churches officially supporting the Bill whose adherents numbered 1,660,000. Those denominations who said “you shall not teach our children the scriptures” were the Unitarians 1500, Seventh Day Adventists, 2600 and the Mormons, 482. Of course there were quite a number of the one and a-half million who objected to the Bill but he knew that of the churches pledged to it not 100 ministers stood out. Mr Isitt said as sponsor of the Bill he had made every effort to placate the Roman Catholics yet Bishop Cleary had informed him that he was determined to have Catholic children taught the full tenets of his religion by his church’s own representatives or nothing.

“But we are determined on one thing," Mr Isitt declared. “We are not going to allow any trouble with the Roman Catholics to interfere with the great bulk of Protestant children being brought up cognisant of the existence of Christ" JApplause-A

The Conscience Clause. , Mr Isitt briefly outlined the history of the Bill and added that before the war there was no conscience clause in. it. As the Bill was now worded any parent objecting could withdraw the child from scriptural lessons and any teaoher objecting could make arrangements with the Education Board to be relieved from such a duty. He had recently read some local oriticism of the Bill from the pen of Mr de la Mare. He wished Ms hearers to know that Mr de la Mare’s comments were only a smaU part of the foolish, illogical and miserable opposition the League had to encounter. Both the late and present Ministers of Education had .admitted that the religious instruction at present being taught in technical and high schools was of a fuller measure than that advocated in the Bill for primary schools. Mr Isitt expressed pleasure at the functioning of the Nelson system and explained that the Bill provided for the legalising of this system. Many people who had assisted in the Nelson movement would be loath to discontinue it, and the Bill provided for the continuance of the system in any schools where it had been started if it was so desired. A resolution approving of the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill j.vas strongly supported. Votes of thanks were passed for the speaker.