OUR NATIONAL SCHOOLS CRISIS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1960, 3 April 1919, Page 3

OUR NATIONAL SCHOOLS CRISIS.

A QUESTION FOR TEACHERS. (To the Editor.) Sir. —The rapid rise of voluntary day schools, which are being established in New Zealand by the various churches (in which religious instruction is given) is leading to the weakening of our national system of education, and, as the Minister of Education, in his last report to (he New Zealand Parliament, refers to the increase of juvenile crime in New Zealand, it is clear that our secular system of education is at fault, and unpopular with many, as it fails to give Bible instruction, which the leading educational authorities and writers —past and present —throughout the world declare should have a place in every education syllabus. I therefore beg to suggest that the various branches of the N.Z. Educational Institute, or State Teachers’ Associations, should arrange conferences composed of delegates from their own body, the Education Board, and the clergy, for the purpose of drawing up a plan, or system, agreeable to all, by which every boy and girl shall receive, it their parents wish, some knowledge (without sectarian leaching) of the great laws, high ideals, and literature of the English Bible. 1 would suggest, Sir, that the London County Council schools’ Bible instruction system be discussed; full particulars can be obtained from their Education Offices, Victoria Embankment, London, W.C. Under the above system no sectarian teaching, or entry of the clergy into the schools, is permitted. Scripture examinations are held every three years, if the ajiove works in cosmopolitan London, it should work hero; but, however, that is for •(‘Xpert's, like school teachers, to decide. 1 am sure, Sir, that Slate teachers, who have the highest interests of the children at heart, will hardly endorse the action of (he N.Z. Educational Institute in deciding to uphold the secular clauses of our education system, thus prostituting the high ideals of education and allowing one of the most important educational associations to be dragged'al (he heels of the secularists. The result will he that a chain of first-class “voluntary church, schools’’ will be established, here, ami staffed with teachers from Home. These schools will later on, as in England, claim government grants, and gel same. If the N.Z. Education Institute had deleted the word “secular” from their objective and substituted “unsectarian,” they would be in step with the times. The 1 following opinions on this ouestion may be of interest; —Edward 0. Sisson, Ph.D., Professor of Education, University of Washington, in his work, “The Essentials of Character,” says: “We have gradually come to omit religion from our mental schemes of pedagogy and comfortably accept (he serious fact that a great part of our youth are growing up without any education in

religion, or rift her, without any religion in their education. Do we completely discredit (ho wisdom of Gladstone when he says: ‘lt is a. dangerous thing for a young man to start out in life without the thought of God.’ . , . But after all we

dare not forget that religion is an integral part of human life and culture, and hence of education.” *

Irving King, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education at the State University of lowa, in his work, “Social Aspects of Education,” slates: “Whatever may be true of (he ability of (be mature mind (n form moral conceptions and act upon moral grounds independent of religious feeling, or of the consciousness of a Supreme Being, it is certainly (rue that such ethical abstractions do not appeal to the child mind. At each step in the elimination of religious instruction from public schools society assumed in-

creased risk. ... ft is a thousand times better to form than to reform.”

• Yours, etc., A NEW ZEALANDER