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SPREAD OF CHURCH SCHOOLS

Sir,—Will you allow me to observe that the deliverance of the Teachers' Institute on this matter is at once the most incisive and destructive pronouncement that I have seen in your columns. It is an ' attack upon the churches and their policy that commands endorsement by all men and women of intelligence inside''and outside the teaching profession. It is true that the parsons have wantonly neglected their duty, and havo not embraced theopportunity offered to them under the. Education' Act for their imparting of religious instruction in schools. They are setting up denominational secondary schools at enormous cost at which religion may bo taught; but such schools can onlv be attended by the children of the better class people—those -ablo to pay. Thus class distinctions are being fostered by churches in a demo'cratic country. Class distinctions breed class jealousies and hatreds, and the moral effect upon the community is far from good: Then denominational and sectarian rivalry and strife are created. These, wo parent's and citizens of a free country, had imagined wo had left far behind,' and the adoption of a na J tional system of education had prevented tainting the minds and manners of our younir. people with sectarian differences; The churches are creating the vorr evils all good men'and women donlore, and all good men and women will discountenance the policy of the" churcies that, as the teachers sav, introdvee "the worst of the evils." At all <vents such a policy is destructive of a tolerant, wise, national' spirit.— 1 I ,im, etc., . " ■ S. A. MARITAN.

Sir, —As a member of the Teachers' • I Conference now in session in your city, ' I I wish to take exception to some remarks made by correspondents in your issue of tliis morning with regard to the attitude of the oxeculivo in calling attention to the complications that - were likely to follow the establishment of sectarian schools. Timo does sot j permit of mv dealing with the matter at length, but as one who at the last conference when the Bible-in-schools question was before the institute voted > ; for that measure, I feel that I have a right to speak, and to say that branding us as "secularists." "a sect . that is tlio most obnoxious of all," does not meet the case, while the expression that we "cease to follow Germany's" lead in our education systemwrung, I know, from a sincere soul vexed witb the apparent failure of 'the Churches' commission and assurance that "the gates of hell should not prevail against it"—an apparent failure, by the way, due to the wrong interpretation of'prophecy that so branding us is not an argument let alone proof of onr anti-Christian attitude. It might well •draw from us a request that the clergy who so rightly deploro the present position with regard to the religious training of the young should consider in how far that position is due to parents as well as teachers having been brought under the influence of not German secularism, but of leaders of the blind who have succumbed to the so-called higher criticism of German theologists, which has shaken the faith of tnanv in the inspirtaion of the Won! of God. I acknowledge that in country districts at hjast the conditions) under which ministers have opportunity to give religious instruction are decidedly adverse to them—l am, etc., J. D. M'NAUGHTON. ' Wellington, January 4. ]91b\

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19180105.2.55.1

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 87, 5 January 1918, Page 8

Word count
Tapeke kupu
568

SPREAD OF CHURCH SCHOOLS Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 87, 5 January 1918, Page 8

SPREAD OF CHURCH SCHOOLS Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 87, 5 January 1918, Page 8

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