UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 308, 7 February 1910, Page 5

UNKNOWN

THE NEW SOUTH WALES SYSTEM. ■' IRRELIGIOUS AND DEFECTIVE." CARDINAL ATTACKS EDUCATION MINISTER. By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright Received 7, 1.5 a.m. Sydney, February 0. Cardinal Moran, in distributing 'prizes to-day, made an attack on the Minister for Education. ■ He said the Scriptu.-e lessons given in public schools were not only irreligious out defective in literary merit. The Minister for Education had said the lessons were the joint production of the Anglican and Catholic Prelates, namely, Archbishop Whateley and Bishop Murray. The statement was a falsehood, and such a barefaced one that the Minister either made it knowing it to be false—and, if so, was unfit for the place he held—or male the statement through inconceivable ignorance, in which case he was educationally not qualified, to be Minister f-.r Education. The Cardinal declared that the noneectarian education, as it was called, was nothing more than a nondescriot system of irreligious belief, which might be more or less conformable to Protestant principles and consistent with Protestant tenets, but as viewed, by Catholics was a stereotyped system of infidelity and" agnosticism.

the Geneva] Sjnou of the Anglican Church hold in Wellington recently reference was made to the working of the New South Wales system. Ar?'ideaoon Willis brought forward a resjJution ashing the Synod to approve of the provisions of the Xew South Wales Education Act under which "Ociier.il Religious Instruction'-' (Bible teaching) is ordered to be given in all the State schools in the ordinary course of lessons by the State teachers, and "'Special Religious Instruction" may be given during school hours by such of' the clergy or the accredited teachers of the various religious bodies as sffeTl • arrange to give such instruction, and lequesting the bishops of the province to take such steps as they may think advisable to bring the advantages of this system before the people of the Dominion. Tile adoption of the New South Wales system would cause the Bible to be taught in every school, and after that they must exert themselves to give special religious instruction whenever possible. First of all. they must have such a strong popular movement that Parliament would not be able to resist it. Letters from the New South Wales Department of Education, last August, showed that the system there was" giving general satisfaction. It had been in force wilh alteration for 20 years and he thought its essentials had'been unchanged for the last 50 years. Speaking of the present New Zealand system, Archdeacon Willis said he hadtrbd giving religious instruction before school hours, after school hours and in -he dinner hour, as the »elson system wis not in operation. After trying it for three years, he gave it up because the conditions were such as to make the children hate religion.

Canon Mac Murray also advocated the New South Wales system, which, lie said, was in operation in several of the Australian States. If they had those privileges here. he. for one, would never ask for any more. There "had never been a single complaint of a toaeher in Now South Wales misusing his positiin, and he believed the teachers of New Zealand were equally honorable and competent. While personally advocating strongly the New South Wales system, he thought the Synod, instead .of affirming it, might be better advised to simply arrange for a eonference with representatives of other churches in the matter, in the hope that they would unite in favor of the New South Wales system. The Bishop of Auckland said the clergy in his diocese would support whole-heartedly the New South Wa'es system, but they could not conscientiously approve of the scheme if lessons set forth a few years ago. The motion, with amendments, was eventually carried.