BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8361, 22 February 1913, Page 6

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

ADDRESS BY DR. CLEARY CRITICISM OF THE LEAGUE PROPOSALS. Press Association. AUCKLAND, February 21. An address was given in tne Town Hall to-niglit by tne Roman Catholic Bishop oi Auckland, on tbe BibleMnscbools question. Tbe Mayor of Auckland presided over a very largo attendance. Bishop Cleary stated that the “ Australian * ’ system demanded by the league expressly provided by Act of Parliament for “ religious instruction ” and “general religious teaching” as part of the regular class work of tbe public schools. Tho Government set up as a teacher of religion by determining tho type of that “ religious instruction,” by embodying it in a manual of Scripture extracts and by compelling Government officials to teach it. The league pamphlet by tbe Rev. A. Don was quoted to show that official religious teaching in Australia was specific, dogmatic, theological, including' “ a definition of prayer ” and “ proofs ” of tb© divine mission of St. Paul. The same league pamphlet showed that teachers conducted formal sectarian and denominational religious worship l including the singing of denominational hymns and the reciting of a denominational version of the Lord’s Prayer. It was proposed to have that sectarian and, denominational religion taught by the State at the expense of the common purse. Mr Caughley, M.A., had estimated at £IOO,OOO the cost of introducing that sectional system. It was the very negation of a “national” system, and was a sectarian aud denominational system in its most objectionable form—namely, a State-taught religion, endowed at the cost of the whole nation for the benefit of only a section of that na/tion. At New Plymouth delegates representing 2800 teachers voted down tho league’s proposals by 42 te 7. The league officially refused a conscience clause to teachers. Its pamphlets placer! the “duty” of Biblical teaching “on exactly the same footing as geography, grammar or any other subject,” and the league pamphlets and orators were quoted .by the qneaker with a view of showing that disniissal would bo the penalty for conscientious objections i teachers. The league placed before conscientiously objecting teachers three alternatives—proselytism to the league views, hypocrisy, or dismissal. A British teacher uuoted in the Queensland Parliament had written: “One must get a living somehow, so I personally comply with the terms of my agreement "with my employers and let conscience go hangl” The league’s conscience clause was devised for the exoress purpose of “weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery.” Its “oppressive working” in Ireland and Portugal was described from official documents, and in _ Australia. from the testimony of bishops and others and from what was described as “copious official evidence” in the league’s, chief pamphlet, entitled “Opinions of Educational Experts.” The official organiser of the_ league had boasted at the Presbyterian Assembly in Wellington that “thirty-two thousand Roman Catholic children, with hardly an exception, read tho Scripture lessons in the schools” of New South Wales, or, in other words, chat they had been successfully proselytised into violation of the faith and discipline of the church of their bapcism and into participation in tho Protestant religious worship described in the_Rev. A. Don’s league pamphlet. The league had made it painfully clear that it demanded the legal rights co tamper with the consciences of dissident pupils and teachers.