A PLEA FOR RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 8, 24 June 1898, Page 31

A PLEA FOR RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL.

Time and patience and ' pegging away ' will probably in due course solve the education difficulty. In the meantime the disastrous results attending the atheistic or godless system in Christian lands will awaken the public mind to its inherent and inseparable dangers. The greatest minds are gradually coming around to a frank recognition of the stand taken by Catholics in these colonies. One of the latest of these was Lord Cross, who was Secretary of State under the Derby Administration. Speaking at the opening of new Church of England schools at Penzance, he referred to the absolute necessity of maintaining the Voluntary schools of the country. He was afraid, he said, that the object of many persons of late was to destroy the Voluntary schools for the purpose of creating universal Board schools and School Boards, and he heartily hoped and believed they would fail in their attempt. He had read with very great pain some statements recently made by the president of the National Teachers' Union, who wished to dissociate secular and religious teaching. The president, however, forget to draw a distinction between instruction and education. Not only must a child be taught the way he should go, but religious truths, which ought to be at the bottom of all lives, must also be put into his mind for the benefit of the child and the State. Between 1870 — when the School Boards were establisheel- — and IS.m; the Voluntary school accommodation had exactly doubled itself — n fact which showed that there was in the minds, of the peojle of this country, and not simply confined to Chuich-people. a determination that their children should be given education grounded on religion, and that they shoulel be taught religious truths. If Voluntary schools were to be continued, they must insist that the secular education given therein should equal that ot the Board schools. Referring to the question of secondary education, Lord Cross said he was extremely anxious that this countiy should organise a system of secondary education without delay, and he was happy to say that the Duke of Devonshire was det< r mined that they should have such a system at the earliest possible day. He was convinced that if the nation failed to provide this, the nation would be the first to suffer.