LETTERS T0 THE EDITOR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1620, 11 December 1912, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE NEW BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS . DEFENCE LEAGUE. Sir—l have read very' carefully your report of tho meeting held' in. tho Town Hall Concert Chamber last evening in opposition to the movement in favour of giving Scripture lessons in the Stale schools. I think that it is a great pity, that well-known men. in this city should stand up in a public meeting and make tuo utterly childish and foolish statements these speakers did on Friday night, about Scripture 'lessons in the public schools of New South Wales. Before'theso men go on. the public platform and pose as authorities on tho education system of New South Wales and its Scripture lessons in tho 'schools, they ought to spend at least five or six yenrs in ono of the large towns of that Stato and then they would not make tho ridiculous statements they did last night. It stands to all reason that intelligent men and women who have constantly to teach Scripture lessons in tho schools must live up to the high standard. set by the "Sermon ou the Mount," and the Ten Commandments, or. else be branded by.their fellows as a hypocrite and a Pharisee. I was horn in this city, and I lived in New South Wales for twenty years, from 1871 until'lß9l. The Education Act, with its Scripture lessons, was passed by Parliament in 1880, and I have been intimately acquainted with some of the principal teachers, Protestant and Catholic, and sonio of the chief inspectors were close friends- of mine, and I say that the statements made from the public platform on Friday were ridiculous nonsense, and I have no doubt that the statements so persistently put forward with regard to Scotland in 1912 are equally unreliable.; The very name they adopted for their league is a glaring misrfomer, as no one wants to attack flic national character of the State schools. - All that is asked for is a slight alteration of one. of tho clauses of the Education Act, to bring it into lino with the Act of New South Wales.— -I am,'etc.,' ' J. H. COLLIER. Northland, DecomUr 7, .1912.