MR. COOKE'S INDISCRETION.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2172, 10 June 1914, Page 9

MR. COOKE'S INDISCRETION.

Sir, —Your correspondent Mr. Chas. J. Cooko, .who so often champions tho anti-Biblc-in-schools confederacy, appears in • evidence to-day in your columns to provo that in many schools reading books wero formerly used that contained passages of. Scripturc—notably tho parablo of tho Good Samaritan. Ho says he discovered that a number of tho pupils knew the parablealmost by heart. If this is so, arid I unreservedly accept his stateinont, what does it prove? Rather more, I fanoy, than Mr. Cooke intended. If the Scriptures can bo read 'in defiance ofthe law which forbado it, under tho superintendence of toachers, who aro supposed to possess consciences of a highly supersensitive character, why cannot tho same Scripture bo road under the same class of teachers when tho reading is sanctioned by law? And will Mr. Cooke kindly tell us to what extent the reading of the Scriptures caused distress and pain among the teaching staff of tho different schools? Did tho hoavens fall, at tho mention of the Good Samaritan? Or did religious bigotry and strife become rampant at the reading of the Golden Rule? These aro a fow questions I would liko Mr. Cooko to firisw'e'r.

But I, foo, have a story to tell about school reading-books. Some years ago there was introduced into our schools a 3et.of readers, "Tho New Australian School Scries"—which contained tho Good Samaritan and other-Bible extracts. The books wero'first-class, but n few rabid secularists—not schoolteachers—made a howl, and the excellent books wero unceremoniously banished from our schools. I have a copy of the "Third Reader" before me as J write, and I deliberately" say that a teacher who cannot—for whatever rea-son--uso such a book in his daily work is, in my opinion, unfit to havo the training of the young, I care not whether ho be a professor if English or a-mera tyro in his profession.—l - am, etc., • • cms.