PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

Franklin Times, Volume 14, Issue 260, 3 August 1925, Page 7

PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

ORDINARY RIGHTS WANTED.

SCHOLARSHIPS DESIRED

EVIDENCE AT COMMISSION

(Per Press Association) WELLINGTON, This Day

At the University Commission today, difficulties facing some of the denominational schools were set out by the Rev. T. A. Gilbert, rector of St. Patrick’s College, who pointed out that in some cases parents had to pay twice because of their religion. He urged that free places and scholarships •should be -made tenable at registered private schools, even in the interest of university education. The law of the land had never ruled that secondary education should be secular. It allowed the teaching of religion in their own schools, and it should not penalise the teaching of religion in private schools, by withholding scholarships and free places. In some Australian States this request had been recognised for many years, and many of the most brilliant university students had been produced from the system. Evidence was placed before the commission by Mr C. W. “Kerry, vicepresident of the New Zealand Society of Professional Teachers of Music. Opinions of the association, he said, were thaf music should be an optional subject for the B.A. degree, as at Cambridge and elsewhere in England. Provision should be made at every centre lectures in music. At present was the only centre in which such a provision was not made.