THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2163, 31 January 1881, Page 3

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

To the Editor of the Globe. Sib, —I believe all, or nearly all, our public school committees throughout New Zealand have been again elected, and I with many of our townsmen are sorry to see that there are clergymen again elected on several of these Boards. This should not be, because in every instance where it has been resolved to introduce denominational instruction in our State schools, it has been nearly in every case at the instigation of the clergy. The State by some is charged with a godless system of education. I, with many others, take it that the development of our school system was a result of which we have no reason to be ashamed of, and it has been aoonmplished by those who had the task cf making our laws, and it has been accomplished by a magnificence of endowment that is creditable in the highest degree. It has scattered throughput the length and breadth of >'ew Zealand the advantages of education with wonderful solicitude for the young. It has brought into existence a system of teaching and inspection, the best the State could command, and it invited all classes of religion to join heart and hand to give education its crowning blessing. Sir, the Church was taught in the days of the dark ages. The world has had enough of that teaching, and it is to be hoped the laymen of our day will stand up like a mighty army to assist the State in carrying out what they have so well began. I trust that Mr Bowen, M.P., may live long to make bis name more famous, and if any defect appears in the healthy child of his creating, that he has been the means of giving to us unsectarian, free, and open to all, then may he beinspired to see it and grapple with it at once. Many will, indeed do, say, with all the pride of sophistry, th»t the Bible should be read in our public schools at stated times during school hours. But the State has said, and rightly too, we cannot teaoh dogma, but we commit ourselves ' to the education of the children who are to be the future citizens of this land, leaving to the parents of the children the right to teaoh their offspring any religion they may think fit, and in their own way. Can anything be more reasonable than this ? It has taken care that the conscience of no child should be violated—not even that of the pauper in any of our institutions—wheresoever they may be lodged. To conclude, there can be no violation of conscience to any, if Bible reading ia kept out of the school in school hours, and as the public schools are conducted at present they are intended f'>r all, for surely there is no ghost of any alien creed in a spelling book, or an English grammar, and no peril to the faith of any child In a slate or copybook. Yours. &c . SEX TERRAE.