LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1838, 26 August 1913, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE NELSON SYSTEM.

Sir, —In your issuo of this morning there aro some statements in a letter from Mr. M. C. 11. Gascoigno that neefl come correction. Tho lirst ono is in relation to country schools, and asserts that these cannot bonelit under the Nelson system. Tho statement is a wido one, and is unsupported by evidence. 1 have some personal knowledge of country schools, and venturo to assert that under tho system a way could be found in a very few years to meet all practical requirements. The instruction is said to bo given outside school hours. This is truo only in a vory technical sense, and a bald statement such as this .is calculated to mislead. The lessons aro not given outsido the ordinary school hours, that is to say, they are given within the hours of tho ordinary school day—there is no afterschool detention. That the lessons aro appreciated is proved by the fact that 97 per cent, of tho pupils in Nelson schools attend thorn. In my own school at tho present timo 500 children per week aro attending lessons given after school by a visiting clergyman. If the lessons woro given witliin school hours, how many hundreds more would there bo?

Tho writer says that permission has to be given by tho Education Board, and that the committee may, and frequently does, refuse it. As a matter of fact, till© board has no powor in tho case, and refusals by committees are exceedingly rare. I have knowledge of only one case. If a committee refuses leave, against the wishes of tho residents, they can elect a committee that will respect their wishes. At prosent there is no cause for dissension among communities on this matter, but from the day that it becomes known, if it over does becomo known, that tlio Government intends to allow a referendum on the question, every committee will bccome a sectarian committee, every election of a committee will be on sQtarian lines, and evory appointment of teachers will bo decided oil tho same test. Tho Nelson system avoids all these evils.

Your correspondent thinks that tlio Nelson system ignoros the teachers. The best reply is the opinion of teachers themselves, who are almost unanimously opposed to the grafting of the New South Wales system of Biblo lessons on to the New Zealand system of Government of schools' by committees. I believo it would be a very safe estimate to say that eight out of ten teachers, in Now Zealand would welcome tho Nelson system.. I have nevor heard any teacher with any experience of it express disapproval. The remark that those who attend the lessons are from religious homes, whilo tho children from careless homos stay outside playing, seems, on tho evidence of figures, to havo boon mado'without duo consideration, or on insufficient knowledge—97 per cent, in attendance leaves very few to bo accounted for on tho score of careless homos.

To say that the Nelson system "emphasises sectarianism in its worst form" is to give utterance to a statement that is so patontly opposed to tho facts that no argument on it is possible. Tho very virtuo of the system is that it absoluto-

ly avoids all possibility of sectarianism, sinco under it tho pupils are not even divided into separate denominational classes. Whether or not they might be, by mutual agroement of those concerned, does not matter at present.—l am, etc., H. A. PARKINSON. Newtown School, August 16, 1913.