BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 452, 13 March 1909, Page 3

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

The Rev. G. K. Aitken writes as follows Seeing that a certain amount of publicity has been given to the question of religious instruction to the young, it may not be out of place to state briefly what is being done in the matter in other places. In Feilding, Napier, Gisborne, and a number of other towns which have been brought under the writer’s notice, one half-hour’s Bible instruction per week is being given by the ministers of the towns mentioned, in the public schools- The instruction takes the form of the reading and* exposition of a portion of Scripture, agreed upon by the ministers previously, and the repetition of the Lord’s prayer. The system of instruction is that one minister for one lesson takes the upper standards, the next the intermediate, then the lower, and so on, and the following week each minister has a change of class. This adds freshness and variety to the lesson, aud gets over any suspicion that might arise in some people’s minds as to sectarian teaching being imparted. It also enables the instruction given to be better adapted to the understand-ing-of the pupils, than if the teacher had to speak to children of all ages in one class. Then the half hour which is thus occupied reaches every child in the school, excepting those whose parents have written stating their conscientious objection to their children receiving Bible instruction; the children whose parents have thus written are simply drafted into another class-room and continue their ordinary school work, while the others are receiving Bible instruction. The advantage of this system of teaching is that the minister has the presence aud assistance of the usual teachers in maintaining discipline, aud in several other directions. The half hour occupied would either be from 9.30 to 10 a.m., or from 3 to 3.30 p.m. The Education Act requires that four hours’ instruction per day be given to the pupils, but the adoption of either of the half hours named would not in any way interfere with the legal hours specified by the Act. Then there is a certainty of giving the instruction to a much larger number of children than by gathering them in a separate building before school hours, and so far as I know and understand the matter, no necessity of teaching from a mutilated Bible, or from the creeds or formularies ot any Christian seel: either.