Page 1 Advertisements Column 5

Gisborne Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1448, 8 May 1905, Page 1

ailK. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. proTaieri Dairy lighly jrities eaper, 1 any ns OIJS. )H’ here. RES MANIFESTO BY STATE SCHOOLS DEFENCE LEAGUE. PROPOSED TENT-BOOK CONDEMNED. b bits ips Cams ilade rs no., s* Tho S’ate Schools Defence Longue, t-bo object of which is to maintain She present ayttem of free, compulsory, curl secular education in the primary schools, ns provided by the Education Act of J 877, is issuing uu ablo manifesto on the subject of the Btolo in schooi tuxt-book. Tho league points out that “ Tho reason Why tho Bible lias been excluded from tho curriculum of our public schools is not that the people of Now Zealand, or ar.y approoiablo proportion of them, believe the Biblo to be a bad book, but because, while recognising it and revering it us the best of books, a majority of ilium consider that religion is a matter of which tho State cannot undertake the touching without violating the rights of consc'enoe of many of its members, and that to aft. nips to teach the Bib'o, or any portion of it, in the State schools, would rend our oduca-' tionel system wi:h sectarian strife, from which its disintegration in the form of dencminationulism would he tho only escape.” SEVERE CRITICISM OF THE TEXT-BOOK. The manifesto then deals with the promised text-book in a severely critical manner. It points out thut the suggestion that tho lessons selected have no specifically religious charact er,bui merely emaody the necessary basis of “ all religious and all ethical teaching” is absolutely unwanaoted, and can ouly bo explained by entire igDorancß, either of the contents of tho book • itself, or of the doubts, difficulties, and differences with which the minds of good citizens and good Christians havo long becD agitated. Some striking omissions in the text book ore noted. Probably the most remarkable omission is that of the special lesson on "Drunkenness a sin against God and our fellow men, and a wrong and insult to our selves,” based on the I. Kings xx, 1 2 1621; Proverbs xxiii, .19 23. 29-35; and laiah xxviii, 17. No dogmatic or critical difficulties were raised by this lesson, and it is presumably from its relation to another burning qaostion of tho day, which it is not for tho league to discuss,that the one lesson propose ! by tho Victorian Couimis sion for tho specific teaching, not of total abstinence, but of temperance, has been deemed unsuitable for the schools of Now Zealand, E CREATION OF.THE WORLD Tho difficulty in explaining the creatirn of tho world in six days is dealt with at some length, and the Dean of Westminster is quoted in this connection as advorso to the literal interpretation. He is also quoted regarding the origin of man, as follows : —"The aecoud chapter of Genesis longor means to us that God moulded e'ay into a human figure, aud breathed upon it, or that he took a lib from Adam and made Eve. Theso aud many other stories iike that' of the talking serpout, or the talking a-s, we do not take (or at any rate most of -I do not) as literal statements of historical facts, but as imagory, which clothes certain spiritual truth ” (Times, October 17tb, 1904). “The views thus boldly proclaimed by tho Dean of Westminster,” adds the manifesto, “ may or may not bo as general in his own ohurch ns bo declares, but his expression of them has certainly caused much pain to many of its membors.” It is then pointed out that the text-book takes the literal view that there is no comment, and that a child who learns tho first lesson in the volume without contradictory or explanatory gloss, will believe that the world was made in six days of 24 hours eucb. Later scientific knowledge, acquired perhaps in the physical geography lessons at the same school, may teach him something different, and it obvious that if the foundation laid in his first religious lesson should be cut away, tho whole of the superstructure may bo seriously imperilled, THE TEACHERS’ POSITION, The effect upon tho teachers of the introduction of such lessons into the curriculum, also, it is stated, deserves to be more particularly considered. A can sciontious teacher, who, liko the Dean of Westminster, is unublo to accept the stories of the croation, of the making of woman from tho rib of man, and of her deception by the serpent, according to their litoral meaning, will refuse to teach as the truth what he bolieves to be false, aud he must make way for a successor who is less critical, or perhaps less scrupulous in expressing tho result of his criticism Regarding the proposed conscience clause, which will, give a teacher a theoretical protection in such a case, it'is stated that though this provision'would enable him to plead conscientious objection as a sufficient excuse for declining to give' the lesson, there would be absolutely nothing to present the education, board,;tho socool committee, and the parents . from securing tho romoval of any teacher availing hitnself of the privilege, and therefore the practical operation of the clause would be as a religious, test, and nothing else. “ Are we going,” says the league, "to add the interpretation of Scripture to tho duties of school committees and education boards, and allow heresy hunts to be their diversions ? ” THE NEW TESTAMENT. The New Testament problem Bud tho element of miracle iq connection with the textbook .are dealt with at length in separate paragraphs. It is pointed, out that some of tho miraculous circumstances attending the birth of Jusus are fully renot the virgin birth itself, an omission which has brought upon those responsible the charge of “ Unitarian bias,” hut.is quite oiearly to be justified by the uusuitableness of tho subject matter for children on physiological grounds alone. On the other hand, the narrative of the crucifixion, tho resurrection, and the ascension, are set out in -full in three different versions. In conclusion, the league express the opinion that the brood minds, tho tolerant and scholarly spirits, and the worldly good sense of the men who have the clerical party’s recent declaration of policy, have had very littlo to do with the shaping of this book. In tho 10 years for which tho agitation has lasted the party has never yet found time to devote any independent thought to she compilation of the text-book which is at once to revolutionise our educational system and to give the tnind of childhood its first introduction Io tho highest of all knowledge. They have made two attempts to fill the gap, and in each case it is a roady made and an imported articlo that has been relied upon for the purpose. In I£S6 they borrowed from New Sputa Waleß tho barbarous and antiquated Irish Scripture' textbook, which, after a brief struggie, the- indignant public opipion oE the colony consigned to'the dust heap, and tho book which they have now accepted, almost as blindly,, from Victoria, must go the same way. Each is ’ a hope 1 as, impracticable attempt to eolvo an ab - solutely insoluble problem. 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