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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 124, 25 September 1877, Page 2

As much controversy lias been going , on relative to the Bible being used in schools, daring the debute on the Education Bill, it may not be out of place to draw the attention of our readers to what has taken place in the niothercountry relative to the same subject. Lord iSandon presided at the distribution of the Hi bio prizes, in connection with the London School Board, at the Crystal Palace, in July last, and the weighty remarks of the President of the Committee of Council will have been read with the livliest interest by the friends of religious education. Believing in the invaluable influence of the Bible upon the English language, character, and national life, his lordship , naturally rejoiced at the opportunity to give countenance to a movement, which brought that benign influence to be.ir upon the rising generation. Years ago, strong attempts were made, and successfully made, by some legislators, to exclude the Bible from day schools, except upon sufferance, and it required to bog- for an admission not denied to either Milton, Shakespeare, or books cf the meanest note as compared with these. After all, it was only admitted at a certain hour, and the teachers might, or might not, remain with their scholars to expound, its lessons, just as suited their fancy. Under these circumstances, the London School Board gave its sanction, so far as it officially could to the subject of Bible teaching, under the encouragement of a prize system, inaugurated by Mr. Francis Peek, one of their members. This gentleman saw that there was great danger of religious teaching being thoroughly pooh-poohed by school boards, and of a new race of teachers growing ■up, ' without, having had the benefit of the religious influence??, which had hitherto toned the mind of our school instructors. He thereupon prevailed

upon a committee of his fellow School Board members, belonging to the leading Christian Churches, to work with him in promoting religious teaching, by encouraging the children to commit to memory some of the most precious passages of Holy Scripture ; and, finally, his efforts were crowned by the Board insisting upon their-pupils having a thorough knowledge of the principles of the principles of the Gospel, so that the life of our Saviour came to be imprinted upon the hearts of almost all. Such is, substantially, the scheme to which Lord Sandon gave his hearty approval, and it is extremely gratifying that the friends of Biblical instruction, whose name is legion, have a second time given prooi of their vitality, and of that love for the Bible, which distinguishes, we might say, almost the universal mass of our fellowcountrymen. Perhaps the most gratifying feature of Mr Peek's scheme is that of the £150,000 children under the management of the London School Board, only one child in a thousand has been withdrawn from the religious teaching, and even that small number, it is said, may be accounted for by the members of the Jewish faith objecting to their children learning the doctrines of Christianity. Bnt a further and more satisfactory proof of the success of the scheme is to be found in the fact, that 80,000 children voluntarily came up for examination in scriptural knowledge, and, according to the reports of the examiner?, the knowledge possessed by these children was " above all praise." Lord Sandon recognised in these significant facts an evidence that there was "no religious difficulty" whatever in the schools, whilst they also proved to his mind, that people of very di&erent churches, of different political views, of different social occupations, of every pllfise of thought and of every kind of character, might unite cordially and heartily to give the rudiments of our common Christianity to our people. We join with his Lordship in hoping the time will come that the legislators of this country may see their way to follow the good example set by the London School Board in this respect. The system of religious instruction is so simple, that neither politicians, moralists, philosophers, nor even secularists, can reasonably object to it. And why should they ? Its eflect upon the children themselves is of the most marked character ]f 80,000 children master sufficient knowledge of the Holy Scripture to encourage them to enter into competition, the study will at least have aroused the dormant talents of a large number, and made them familiar with some of the most sublime and pathetic of poetry and prose which any book contains, apart from the question of its inspiration.

Without a knowledge of scripture, indeed, a large part of English literature remains as a sealed book. And who will dispute with Lord Sandon when lie says, that with the Bible as the standard and guide of life, he had no doubt that England, as a nation, would more than ever bo " the envy and pride of the world," and that her people would be able to fill that high destiny which her universal commerce, and her almost universal language, seemed to point out to be her own.