THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3121, 29 June 1881, Page 3

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

[To tbe Editor of the Daily Telegeaph.] Sir, —In your leading article yesterday on the permission accorded by the Education Board to the Bible in Schools Committee you remark that " it might be regarded as only courteous to have kindly requested the teachers to take this work off the bands of the Committee. 1 ' As your words may convey the ihlpression that the Board issued a peremptory direction to the teachers, when all they have done has been to sanction a courteous request, it seems fair alike to the Board and to the Bible in Schools Committee that the circular which was submitted to the Board should be published for the information of your readers. The letter issued by the secretary of the Otago Association, and which, mutatis mutandis, will now be issued by the Napier Bible in Schools Committee, is as follows: — "Dear Sir, —By the kind permission of the Education Board this Association begs to enclose a sufficient number of circulars addressed to parents in this educational district, to cover the number of families attending the school presided over by you, with the request that you will feiDdly, on the day of receipt, distribute the same (.one to each family) to your scholars. The council will feel obliged by your requesting the scholars to bring the reply to you the day following the distribution if possible. On receipt of the replies please enclose in Btamped wrapper, which is sent herewith, and post to me." The Napier ■chool committee, having refused to allow the circulars to be distributed in the school of which they have the management, other means will be adopted for ascertaining the wishes of the parents in this town. The Napier Committee appear to have taken umbrage at the action of the Board in not consulting the committee on a step which they regard as a departure from a resolution of the committee, passed last year, unfavorable to the introduction of the Bible into the ■chool. Did it not occur to these gentlemen that it is much more important to ascertain tbe wishes ot the parents, whose interests they represent, than simply to re-affirm their own opinion ?— I am, &c, Edward C. Waiapu. June 29th, 1881.