9

H. W. CLEARY.]

1.—13b.

teacher could not tell a child who God was. and if he could not tell the child Unit God was the Creator of all that was, then he said thai man bad missed his vocation. Whatever lie was lit for, lie liHisi certainly was not tit to be a teacher." Two further dogmatic bases for the biblical lessons arc set forth in an official leaflet by the Bishop of Waiapu, where he says of the proposed Scripture extracts (a) that "the passages will not lose their ' inspiration ' because separated from the context," and (6) that they will present "something of the facts contained in the record of God's revelation to man." In its issue of the 21st April, 1914, the Outlook (the chief League organ) editorially demanded, on the same dogmatic basis, the introduction of "this unique record of God's dealings with mankind as pftri of the ordinary school curriculum." Another member of the present League, Rev. 1 , . ]!. Fraser, wrote that the selections approved by the League of 1905 consisted of " mutilated portions and scraps of Scripture presented under a strong dogmatic bias to the minds of the children," and that they were full of dogma" (Otago Daily Times, 22nd April. 1905). The author of "Mixed Education" (Dublin, 185!), pp. 152-153) quotes the Rev. I. K. French as testifying to the dogmatic character of the Irish Scripture extracts now in use in New South Wales. The Rev. Mr. French states that those (now) New South Wall's books •'teach the doctrines of grace " j the doctrine of " one only sacrifice for sins "; the doctrine of " justification by faith, without works"; and other specified doctrines to which a controversial turn is given, to this day. in the Reformed denominations. (The Queensland text-books also contain the dogma of ''justification by faith, with works.") "No wonder," says the author of "Mixed Education " (p. 153), "thai Dean Kennedy, whose schools are attended by more Catholics than Protestants, should dec],ire. on oath, that ' the principles of the national system are the principles of the Reformation. . . .' No wonder that the sentiments of Dean lloare, Dean Warburton, Archdeacon Stopford, and the Rev. Messrs. Frew and O'Hegan, as stated before the Mouse of Lords, in 1854, should be almost equally decided as to the Protestant oharacter of the lesson-books and Scripture extracts." Here, again, the "Scripture extracts" are those which, long ago discarded in Ireland, are still in use in New South "Wales. 2. It is, in fact, simply impossible to avoid dogma in teaching any subject whatsoever. The multiplication table is. for instance, a litany of dogmas. The axioms and theorems of Euclid are dogmas. At the cenleiiarv of the National Society in London, on the 2.3rd March, 1911, Mr. Balfour well remarked that you cannot even teach arithmetic to children unless "you teach them dogmatically. If you do not teach them dogmatically you do not teach them at all. It is" (he added) "the same with the so-called '('ow pel-Temple ' religion" (the " unsectarian " and •' undogmatic "' religion type of the League, and of the present Rill) " that must be taughi dogmatically or it will not be taughi at all." "A teacher, says (!. K. Chesterton, "who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching." .'i. The Bill (and the League) therefore seriously mislead legislators and electors when they slate or imply that the system of biblical instruction which they propose is " unsectarian " or " undogmatic " or "undenominational." Curiously enough, in the present Rill the term " dogmatic " is omitted from the ballot-paper, thus leaving the teacher free to give whatever may be interpreted as ''dogmatic" religious instruction should the proposed educational changes become law. Yet Dr. Spmtt (Anglican Bishop of Wellington, and a member of the League executive) describee that ballot-paper as ''our question, and ours only" (Auckland Star, Bth July, 1914). In other words, the ballot-paper removes an interpretative restriction favouring religious liberty in a way, which restriction the League had put into its petition-card in order to secure petitioners' votes. The League's ballot-paper offers the League a State-guaranteed interpretative privilege which the League's petition-card expressly repudiated. Vet the League has. apparently, never consulted its petitioners in regard to this change in its platform. XII. Clbrgy Visits. 1. The Bill provides for the right of entry of the clergy for " religious instruction " during school hours. The present Bible in Stale Schools League demands this. Previous organizations of the kind in New Zealand were vehemently opposed to it. 2. In its nature tins provision constitutes the clergy Stale teachers I'm , the time being, and makes the State schools denomina t ional for a portion of their work ing-1 ime. It is obviously of greatest advantage to the denominations that have inosl money and men. Presumably for this reason the right of entry of the clergy—to denoininationali/.c the Stale Schools system—has all along been favoured by Anglicans. They abandoned it temporarily, and by way of compromise, in 1904-5, chiefly on account of the vehement denunciations of the Rev. Dr. Cibb and the opposi i ion of ihe Presbyterians and others. On the League platform tin chief thing put forward has been "the Bible" in the schools—now reduced to mere "Bible extracts" in the schools. But Bishop Averill (a member of the League's executive) describes as " the main plank in the Bible in State Schools League platform the right of entry of clergy and accredited teachers of all recognized denominations, within school hours, for the purpose of giving definite religious instruc tion to their own children " (letter in Otago Daily Times, 24th May. 1913). In the Nelson Mail of the 22nd January. 1913, the \nglican Bishop of Nelson declared that he would not touch the Bible-in-Schools movement if the right of entry were nol added. A practically identical view is credited to Bishop Julius (a vice-president of the League) by Mr. ('. J. Cooke (of the Schools Defence League) in the Dominion of the Bth April, 1914. The Hight I'ev. the Anglican Primate (Dr. Nevill) is president of the League. The Rev. ft. Knowles Smith (late president of the Primitive Methodist Church) states that the Primate, when asked to accept the elimination of the right of entry of the clergy, declared that " the Act would be useless without it ; that that was what they wauled, and for which they were endeavouring to secure our sympathy and cooperation (Otago Daily Time* report, quoted in Ntw Zealand Tablet of the 28th November, 11)12).

2—l, 13b.