The New Zealand THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913. " THE BIBLE LEAGUE AND THE TEACHERS

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1913. " THE BIBLE LEAGUE AND THE TEACHERS

HE entrance of the Bible into the schools,’ M lljOi] said Canon Garland at the recent WellingV < ton demonstration, ‘did not mean that teachers would be dismissed, it meant that tY the teachers would be retained.’ As our readers are V are > the Bible League prol W ' r posals compel all State school teachers— Sr Jew and Gentile, Secularist and Unitarian —to give ‘ religious instruction’ in the Old and New Testaments. The only condition on which Canon Garland’s statement can in any degree hold good as regards objecting teachers is one which is as humiliating to the teachers concerned as it is shameful and discreditable to the people who are trying to impose it. That condition is, in brief, that the teachers should throw away all question of fidelity to the dictates of their own conscience. As Bishop Cleary expresses it, in the pamphlet to which we last week made reference, the objecting.teacher can escape dismissal only- by being

willing to stifle the' cries of his soul and sell his conscience to provide bread for himself and his little ones.' This is; in point of fact, as his Lordship points out, the pathetic plea of a British teacher quoted in the Official Record '-the'Debates in the Queensland Parliament. ' One must get a living somehow,' this teacher wrote, 'so I, personally, comply with the terms of my agreement with my. employers and let conscience go hang.' '-.' ; . v -- ;• • • : ; - It is, of course, a manifest degradation to the sacred Scriptures that they should be taught in such a spirit, and it is an almost unspeakable degradation to an ostensibly religious body, like the Bible-in-State Schools League that it should be willing to accept service, on such-a condition. % It is not, however, to be assumed that this condition of,nnprotesting acquiescence will be universally : or even generally realised in New Zealand, where, as we know, a large number of -the teachers have conscientious objections, and where the profession have, publicly and officially, and by an overwhelming vote, declared against the league proposals. It remains, therefore, to ask: Is it in point of fact true that ' the entrance of the Bible into the schools' in the manner contemplated by the league —' does not mean that : teachers will be dismissed.' It is easy to show, from the utterances of league representatives and by still' more unimpeachable and conclusive evidence, that to the objecting teacher, dismissal, and nothing but dismissal, is involved in the adoption of the Bible-in-State Schools League proposals. The Lyttelton Times of January 1, 1913, quoted by Bishop Cleary in the pamphlet referred to, contains the following in a report of a meeting ; of the Student Christian Movement at Rangiora: The position of teachers unwilling, or not qualified, to give Bible instruction was discussed; and the 'chairmanj" summing up : on the point, expressed the opinion that when the State recognised its duty to. the .children in providing for Bible instruction in the' schools,-.the,-teachers referred to would have no function in : the State.' ■'• The'chairman of the meeting was Mr. N; Gibson, M.A., house master of Christ's College; (Anglican), Christen In the issue of January 12 p 1913,. of the same paper, Mr. Gibson ."' explained to a" reporter' that 'the opinion he expressed. ■; . -■••* -■ . was given by him as a logical deduction, in viewing;. the position of the teacher from an academic standpoint.' So, then, on the authority of a practical teacher, and Canon Garland to the contrary notwithstanding, unqualified or conscientiously unwilling., teachers are logically deduced ' to be ineligible for employment in a Bible-in-schools Dominion. Another representative of the ! movement — league orator—is quoted \p the New Zealand Journal of Education for November, 1912, p. i 225, as putting the case much more The;teacher who objects,' said this indiscreetly candid follower -of Canon Garland, must give way id one, who won't.'. ••-" i ■ ."■ * It may be urged that these are merely the utterances of individuals, who are not entitled to speak with any authority. Here, then, is a chain of absolutely official evidence winch "shows beyond all question that for, the honestly objecting, teacher, who persists in his refusal, to do violence to his conscience, there is only one fate—and that is dismissal. We give the evidence as it is, set forth by Bishop Cleary in his enlarged lecture on the • question:' (a) The league officially objects to a conscience clause for teachers; (b) the league officially declares' against allowing any teacher : -"his own choice" . about giving or not giving Biblical lessons; (e) the league insists on the teachers seeing "that the.-children-understand the (Biblical) lesson as :intelligently as any other lesson" ; (d) a league pamphlet .declares., in this same connection, that "it is the duty of teachers to teach faithfully the syllabus of instruction laid down for them " by the Education Department".; (e) : the. league's proposed Biblical and '-'general religious teaching" is declared to be "placed on exactly the same -footing as geography,'"grammar, or. any other subject. Everybody knows what would happen to a teacher who persistently refused to teach

geography or grammar or any other subject in the prescribed curriculum—he would simply , be deprived of his position. Under the Bible League proposals, the Biblical lessons are made part and- parcel of the official ' syllabus of instruction/ and the inference is inevitable and indisputableif the teacher refuses to teach this portion of the prescribed syllabus, he must go. The hardship of the case is greatly aggravated by the sacrifice which dissident teachers who are loyal to their consciences will be compelled to make in regard to the provision for old age or incapacitating illness to which they would otherwise he entitled under the Teachers' Superannuation Act. The teachers of New Zealand have an exceptionally fine superannuation system, generous in its terms, sound in its finances, and the envy of the teaching profession throughout the rest of Australasia. Under Section 235, Sub-section 1, of the Act, it is provided that the teacher who is dismissed —even on the honorable ground of fidelity to conscience —or who voluntarily retires rather than play the hypocrite, shall merely receive back the payments he has made to the superannuation fund, without a penny of interest, and without the handsome benefits for which he had worked and to which he had so long looked forward. » Apart from the irrefutable evidence given above in confutation of Canon Garland's statement that 'the entrance of the Bible into the schools meant that the teachers would be retained,' it remains to say that not Canon Garland, not the Education Department, not even the Government itself, can give any guarantee whatever as to what will befall the teachers should the proposed system ever come into operation. The dis—and, not less important, the appointment also of teachers is placed in other hands; and it is this fact, as we have again and again pointed out, that differentiates the case of New Zealand from that of all the other States in which the proposed system has been tried. In the case of the latter, dismissals and appointments are made by a single, central, non-elective authority; in New Zealand, they are made by elective local bodies. No one with any knowledge of. the weakness of human nature, or of the history of the efforts made by sectarianism in this country—even without the temptations and opportunities presented under the new system— assert itself in the past, can pretend to doubt that under the league's proposals teachers who are conscientiously unwilling or who are deemed to be unqualified to give the Bible lessons will be discriminated against and that religious beliefs will become a bar to State employment in this important branch of the public service. In view of the foregoing facts it is evident that Dr. Cleary does not state the position one whit too strongly when he describes' the league's proposals as ' a declaration of war against the teaching profession in this Dominion.' This may, in fact, be said to be now tacitly acknowledged by Canon Garland, who, in his Wellington speech, defiantly declared that ' they did not acknowledge that the teachers had the right to come between parents and the children.' The points we have been discussing are not new; and our object has merely been to direct attention to the fresh and interesting evidence which Bishop Cleary has collated on the subject. We have had, also, a further objectnamely, to give the representatives of the * league one more opportunity of facing the issues which are clearly and plainly involved in their proposals,' and of replying to objections which must stamp the movement with the stigma of weakness and bad faith ; so long as they remain unanswered. Taking, then, one' issue at a time, and confining ourselve? for the present to the relation of the league's proposals to the teachers, we invite them to state once for all on what principle of morality they justify their action in seeking to compel State teachers, under penalty of dismissal, to conduct Biblical and ' religious instruction' at variance with their religious convictions, or with the doctrine ■or discipline of their various faiths? As in our. previous offer, reasonable space for reasonable communications will be given to Canon Garland, the Editor of the Outlook, or any other accredited representative of the league. Will the champions of the Bible-in-schools

K : movement at last pluck up courage to face the duty / that is so urgently laid upon them and make some sort of manly attempt to defend their position, or will they continue their-ignoble and pusillanimous policy of shirking and running away ; ~ V