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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3120, 28 June 1881, Page 2

Without in the least desiring to throw obstacles in the way of the Bible in Schools Committee, we cannot but remark that the Education Board has treated the district school committees yitn scant courtesy in so readily granting leave for the distribution of circulars by means of the children attending the public schools. The teachers at the several schools are to be given these circulars in order to redistribute them to the children, who, on their part, are to take them home and get their parents to answer in writing the questions contained in the circular. The children are then to return thecirculars to the teachers, who are to forward them to the Bible Committee. This work that is to be thrust upon the teachers will not be very arduous - will not, indeed, eive them any trouble at all, but, at time, it will be work that is outside their duties, and which has nothing to do with that for which the country pays them. Further than this, the work that they are about to be called upon to do will come upon them witji the sanction if not by the command of the Education Board, a body that, in reality, does not possess the authority of the Roman Centurion to say to a teacher " do this," and he must do it. Any such power a 8 this belongs to the school committees, and those bodies would be justified in refusing their permission to the teachers to issue circulars to the children attending their schools. There is another point that seems, to be overlooked by the Bible in Schools Committee, which is this: the teachers are to be asked to distribute the circulars, and collect them from the children on the replies being filled up, to save the Bible in Schools Committee the trouble of doing the work. Such being the case, it might be regarded as only courteous to have kindly requested the teachers to take this work off the hands of the Committee. There are very few district school committees, we imagine, that would object to any clergyman, or layman for that matter, reading the Bible in the schools after school hours, leaving it to the parents to determine whether their children should stay for such religions instruction as such a course might impart. Why then should the Bible in Schools Committee make it their object to get the Bible read compulsorily in the schools when it absolutely rests with the energy and zeal of the ministers of religion, or " the Church," as Mr Tanner calls one of the denominations, to secure this alleged blessing ? But in truth the Church, and, apparently, its ministers, shirk the work, and like the Bible in Schools Committee would get the teachers to do what they ought to do for themselves.