Church Schools.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume XV, Issue 5, 1 November 1924, Page 455

Church Schools.

In the course of an address presented to the Archbishop at the dedica-t tion of the site of St. Mark's open r air school the A.L.O.G (Association of the Love of God), Christchurch, made a statement declaring its attitude to State and Church education. "We. mourn the sad secular captivity, m the constraining bonds of which public education for the last fifty years has been fettered m this Dominion. That we, as a Church, should have so long submitted to this bondage for most of our children we may m part explain, though not excuse, by the fact that eyes have been blinded by the glamour of the idol, so attractive m many of its features,, set up by an all unwittingly misguided State. Christian men and women, m bowing down at the popular . cry, 'Free, secular and. compulsory,' have sacrificed the liberty wherewith m a Christian State they had very properly been made free, the liberty to mould and lead put the character of our children m a .Christian atmosphere, where. Christian teachers teach, and. Christian motives rule. Nor do we now believe that escape from this bondage is to be provided by an avenue which does not restore and preserve to the Church the right to fulfil her sponsorial obligation to the children of her baptism. . . ."