INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL EXPERTS' OPINIONS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2141, 6 May 1914, Page 9

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL EXPERTS' OPINIONS.

Sir, —Tho . following authoritative opinions '. given by educatibnal experts' are of value just now. This,extract'is from the committee's.'report of the International Inquiry on "Moral Instruction in Schools," hold in London, 1908, and attended by. educationists' from France, Belgium, Germany, United . States, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, arid Japan. Professor Sadler, University <f Manchester, edited a report of the conference. Tho extract roads:—"But so far as Great Britain is concerned, the committee are impressed by the earnest conviction with ■which so large a number of the .teachers, and especially of the' women teachers, loth in our elementary and our secondary . schools, speak of the power of the Toligipus lessons to inspire a high moral ideal, and to touch the springs of conduct. Wc'aro assured hv our investigators, and by some wdio have given oral evidence, that tho withdrawal of the religious lessons from the schools (and in still a higher degree tho prohibition -of acts of common worship) would bo regarded by multitudes of teachers as a calamity.hurtful (as they beliovo) to the children, injurious (as they. know) 'to their own spiritual life." Two English opinions are.worth quoting, viz.:—Mr. John Shawer.oss, University College, Oxford, England, reports on Biblb teaching in the elementary schools:—". . . And nowhoro is this intimate- and essential connection of religion and morality, of. right action and true devotion, so forcibly, and' at tho samo time so simply, proclaimed as in the history of the Jews as told in- the ■ Biblo; in no book could-tho teacher find the conception of duty as'..: the 'stem dalughtcr of the voice? of God,' presented so impressively or in a manner so calculated to appeal to tho heart and understanding of children. ' In a book of thi3 uuique character, a book moreover towards which thero exists an untrained, almost innate, sen3o of reverence in the mind of every child, the teacher possesses a lever of moral stimulus which ■ ho cannot afford to dispense with." .- Miss C. E. Grant, .Dermis Road, L.C.0., England, Infants' School, said: —"Tho natural vehicle for moral teaching is surely the Biblo lesson.:. From whatever plane of criticism the. teacher may. view the Biblo stories, they are incomparable for young children. Tliev are simple, clear cut, dealing with primitive life and instincts, the stories of tho childhood of the race. . . . Tho quiet religious half-liou'r in tho morning affords a unique opportunity for. that spiritual 'heart-to-heart' communion between teacher and pupil which no other lesson or 'subject' can supply. . . . The religions lesson must never bo lest to England."—l am, etc., A NEW ZEALANDER. May 5, 1914.