The Clutha Leader. BALCLUTHA: FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 152, 8 June 1877, Page 4

The Clutha Leader. BALCLUTHA: FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

The Colonial Legislature of New Zealand will ere long be in session. Not the least important subject to be then taken in hand will be that of education. The Premier has given intimation of this in a recent address delivered by him, and in so many terms has made it known that the education whicb the Government proposes to establish and maintain is to be purely secular. By this we are to understand that religion is to be excluded : that is, that of the means of instruction, of the volumes capable of giving information, the Bible, which comes from the first and highest source of wis:lom, is to be excluded from our schools. The exclusion of that book to which we owe our religion, and from which, on that very account, comes all our morality, all our knowledge of and the motives to induce us to act aright towards one another, as well as towards God, must necessarily imply the exclusion from our schools of the teaching of the morality that springs only from the teaching and influence of the Bible : else why exclude the source whence it can be drawn ? We scarcely think that the Government, or the Press that has begun to write up what they call secular education, are prepared to support an education that excludes from it the morality of the Bible, the inculj cation of the moral principles, and the practice of the morality which it is one end of the Bible to secure, and in securing which consists at once an important branch of education, and the present wellbeing and well-doing of the individual whether young or old, and of society in its several parts and bearings. Butif theGovernment,and the Press that advocates a purely secular education, are not prepared to exclude the teaching of the moralities of the Bible, and which can only be rightly tauo-ht when taught as set forth in the Bible, and become the characteristics of those who learn them as they are taught them, it does seem tbe strangest procedure to exclude from our schools the one book that divinely embodies, sets forth, urges to the pi-acfice, and supplies the proper motives to the practice, of true morality between child and child, between youth and youth, between man and man, us well as towards God. Every other teacher of true morality comes short of the Bible. Any true morality, with the persuasive motives to. its due and proper exercise, that is- taught elsewhere, is taught at second hand, and

""™ l— ™ <^ —MM M»>illi||l> never can come with the clearness and force with whioh it comes from the pure undiluted source. The teacher may, indeed, watch over and direct the moral conduct of his pupils, instil into thuir minds the feelings they should cherish, and set before them the conduct they should manifest, in these laying- the foundation of their after life. But thu he can only do effectually if he can base them on a proper foundation, if he can supply the proper motive, and assign an effectually persuading- reason. For the development of a fitting Christian mo* raliry there must he Christian -motive aud Christian reason supplied j and if, viva voce, a teacher mhy* instruct his pupils in Christian morality, and influence thetn thereto by Christian motives, teaching- them to walk in love, to be honest, to be courteous, from the motives and under the reasons adduced in Scripture, why should the book from ■ which he has drawn his own education, which speaks to children, and embodies examples of Christian childhood and youth for the edification of children, be excluded from the hands of children while receiving- from their teacher the lessons it is his duty to convey, and on conveying- which depends largely his success in imparting lessons of another kind ? Only on the ground that moral teaching — teaching what is becoming conduct, conductthat of necessity should be secured in every school, as leading to its observance elsewhere— only on the ground that all such teaching- is to be excluded from school instruction, can we conceive that the exclusion of tha Bible as a means of instruction within the school can be consistently maintained. It is absurd to allow tb.9 teacher to instruct as to conduct which, to be right and proper and permanent! must rest on a sure basis, and that th>? basis of Scripture authority, exhibited in its teachings, requirements, motives, and examples, and yet exclude the Scriptures themselves as a means of conveying^ this part of his instructions. And it is still more absurd if the teaohe ■,' in his instructions, may make reference to the lessons, and motive?, and ex-' arables furnished in Scripture, and th it Scripture itself is not to be allowed in the hands of his pupils within the walls of the schoolhouse. Consistency d»mands that if the Bible is to be' the one book tabooed in schools, it sh'ouhl neither be referred to, nor any of its instructions communicated ; thatsilen :e should reign within the school regarding the varied field of knowledge whic'i it lays open, and in regard to much embraced within that field it is the alone authoritative teacher ; and in regard to the res*, it is the highest and truest authority. The morality becoming- :i Christian, whether young or old, in i a character, motives, and extent, can b-s learned only from Scripture. There ai-e whole histories and many facts of history in their rise, progress, and effect, that are only taught in Scripture. There are others common to Scripture and profit ne writers, but which in the former are presented in lights in which they are not and could, not be presented in merely human records, and which gives an importance to them that enhances their educational value as read and studied in the sacred volume— underivable as read and studied elsewhere. But all such knowledge as comes from the Bible alone, and all such influence that the knowledge which comes from the Bible in common with other sources brings along with it, aiv. to?be denied to the youths taught in our schools. In fact, what in some respecrs is their only teacher, what in other respects is their highest and truest teacher, is to be withheld from them, and only inferior and secondary sources to b. opeu to them, sources which cannot supply them what the Bible can supply, and which cannot supply half so well what they have in common with Scripture. The best is to be shut out. Tho inferior is to be authorised. This is the theory on which it is proposed to construct our new education scheme. The pleas urged on behalf of this theory we shall consider in a future issue.. Meanwhile we shall only add that men do not generally act on such a theory, and it will require strong reasons indeed to subject so important a matter as education to the operation of so unbecoming a theory.