THE CLERGY AND THE SCHOOLS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 38, 14 February 1913, Page 6

THE CLERGY AND THE SCHOOLS

"There are only two places in the Klnpire that disgrace themselves by making no provision religious education in their schools," said Canon Gar* land at the Bible-in-Sehools League's meeting on Tuesday, "and New Zealahd is one of them." We do not complain of a licence of language exceeding the usual limits of courtesy observed towards the institutions of a land ih which n the critic is a stranger, but' we have a right to complain of the manner in which this particular critic allocates .his censure. If the nature of Canon Garland's employment had left him free to criticise impartially, he would surely have fastened some share of tho "disgrace' 1 on other people- than the opponents of his present propaganda. Fine' pulpit points can no ioajjt be uudo out of the "Clod.

less" Bystem of education which banishes the Bible from the State Bchools, while admitting it to the gaols. But whose fault is it that even under the present law the Bible does not find its way into most of our schools? Canon Garland has been long enough in New Zealand to be fully aware that if the Churches which have organised his mission had devoted half as mtfch energy to utilising the opportunities , for voluntary religious instruction which 1 the law allows, a large majority of the children would have been just as far removed from "Godlessness" as any change in the law can ever make them. In Nelson some ninety per cent, of the school children have for years been receiving a religious educa* tion which imposes no strain upon anybody's conscience, and no liability for the cost of a religious endowment upon dissentient taxpayers, and recognises no sectarian distinctions. Is it to be expected that equally good results can be obtained from a system which will compel the school teachers, willy*., illy, to give Bible lessons of a very limited scope—not religious lessons at all, we are gravely told— and will at the same time throw the school doors open for the entry of every accredited denominational teacher who desires to initiate the infant mind in the distinctive mysteries of his own special creed? The, fact at any rate remains that in Nelson, Oamaru, and other places this voluntary system has produced the best possible results, and that the Rev. Mr. Williams, of Oamaru, has recently said that if the system were generally adopted there would be no need for any change in the law. Why, then, is not the system generally adopted? The answer is that for 1 some reason or other the Churches which are so loud in demanding a change in the law have not deemed it worth while. Whether from indifference or from laziness, or from a Jesuitical desire to see the. working of the present system made, from the religious standpoint, as bad as possible in order to improve the chances of the revolutionary change that is being sought — whatever the reasdn be —the responsibility is plain, and it rests with men whom Canon Garland has very good reason for not treating with the same candour that he displays towards their opponents. On Sundays Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist pulpits arecentres of eloquent denunciation Of the " Godlessness " of our schools. On week days the occupants of those same pulpits pass by those same schools on the other side, and leave the little ones to starve and languish in their secular darkness. We are, of course, speaking in general terms. In the places we have named the necessary trouble has been taken to deal with the problem ; nor are Nelson and Oamaru the only such places. But no general and united effort has been made, or the adoption of the Nelson system would have been the rule and hot the exception. We shall, of course, be told that the responsibility rests not with the Churches but with the Education Boards and the School Committees, which 'have refused to allow a convenient hour for the Bible lesson. But these boards and committees are merely the creatures of tho people, and a determined effort on tho part of the supporters of the Bible-in-fcchools movement, assisted on this point by a large number of those who on tho larger issue are opposed to them, would epeedily have brought the recalcitrant bodies to reason. We can well believe that many of the Australian Churchee have been lax in the Use of the special privileges provided for them by the law when wo see how the opportunities of our own Education Act have been neglected in New Zealand. But it is hard Upon the Act that those who have refused to take advantage of these opportunities for religious teaching should bo loudest in their denunciation of its irreligion.