CORRESPONDENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2195, 20 May 1908, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Correspondence on public matters is welcomed at all times, but it must bo distinctly understood that this journal is in no way associated with ch© opinions of its correspondent*.] BIBLE-TE ACHING IN SCHOOLS.

[To THE Editob.] Sir, —-The Education Board is evidently bent on doing all that it can to defeat the wishes of parents of Gisborne as given expression to last year and practically endorsed by the election of the present School Committees last month. By passing a hard and fast regulation last year that there should be five hours of secular instruction daily, an attempt was made to prevent our School Com ; mittees giving effect to the parents wishes for half an hour’s Bible teaching once a week. And when an honest effort was made both by Pastor Rios and by Mr. Barton at the last meeting of the Board to relax the hard and fast regulation, so as to allow the voice of the parents to be heard in a matter in which they hare an undoubted right to bo heard, the Chairman, Sir William Russell, acted in an extraordinarily arbitrary manner, and refused to allow the reasonable solution that was proposed to be Pa ft°is' simply absurd to suppose that i onf , a ,s the Act is being observed, and no ,■injustice is being done to anyone, the wishes of parents anc housoholders aro to liave no consideration it the hands of the Board of Education What becomes of our boasted democratic principles under such cnCU Therc is, of course, nothing to prevent the present system of Scrip tur rp-ichiu l ' being continued as before rom 9to 9.30 a.m. The only change ilip teachers to observe the letter oi the regulations, would be to order the chool on that’ particular day to remain open till 3.30 instead of 3 p.m., and if parents objected to this, tnen an effort would have to be made t place on the Education Board at the combi" election in July men who would take a moro reasonable i iow o the situation.— I am » «“?•» , n , T je. W. OUAlTJjjlllOJv, See. Bible Teachers’ Association.