BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1603, 21 November 1912, Page 6

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

. —9 ; —. ,'* ', CANON GARLAND ANSWERS ".'■■•• ' OBJECTORS. Canon Garland addressed a meeting at Kilbirnio last night on tho subject of religious teaching in schools. Ho referred to an objection raised by opponents to this proposal that the condition of things, that obtained in connection with education in England and Scotland was sought to be introduced here and that tho result of adopting the Australian system of instruction would be to' set up the same state of affairs as existed in Great Britain. This Canon Garland denied. He said that the condition of things in England was exactly opposite to that which the Biblo-in-Schools League supported. In England the great majority of tho schools-were denominational, under ecclesiastical control, supported by the Stato. The league advocated national schools free from ecclesiastical control and was prepared to stand by' the national school system provided religious instruction wero admitted. Many papers in the Dominion had published reports of an alleged occurrence in Scotland quite recently. He wished to point out that the same conditions not only could not arise in New Zealand, but that the league was opposed strenuously to a condition of affairs such as existed in Scotland where the school boards had the right of deciding how much, if any, religious instruction should bo (given in the schools. The teachers appointed by theso hoards were required to give such definite religious instruction— neither niore'.npr less—as the board decided. In New Zealand the league, distinctly, laid down that it did not desire that the teachers should give this in- x struction. It advocated that the churches should have the right: to do this in school feours. If this system were established, £anon Garland remarked, it. would result in the people of the whole Dominion, and not any board or. local committee, deciding whether a religious instruction system should bo adopted. Canon Garland also referred in passing to the term "'entirely secular" a3 used in tho Education Act, and quoted Sir Robert Stout, who, speaking in Parliament as Minister for Education, said that the teaching.of religion in the schools was a blot on the secular system. He claimed "that Sir Robert Stout's interpretation of tho phrase "entirely secular" showed that the intention 'of those who substituted these words for the clause in the draft Bill providing for religious teaching, was to banish religion from the schools. Mr. G. Flux, headmaster of tho Rintoul Street School, expressed himself as strongly in favour of the proposal. He did not regard it, ho said, as a proposal to introduce an additional subject whicli would hinder the syllabus, because teachers—quite independent of the Bibk-in-Schools movement—were being exhorted to introduce additional reading matter. It had been .said that some teachers were atheists. There were Scriptural references in the reading books now in use, but ho had never heard of an atheist teacher who refused to give these lessons. He, personally, asked for the right to have Bible lessons in schools, without tear or favour, and considered that alleged difficulties would disappear as mists before tho sun. Tho teachers of New Zealand, Mr. Flux mentioned, wero now advocating a Dominion system of appointment. This, when obtained, would overcome the difference between Now Zealand and Australian conditions. ■