HOPELESS PERSISTENCY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8864, 26 October 1907, Page 4

HOPELESS PERSISTENCY.

Perhaps the most persistent body of men and women in the dominion comprises those who constitute the varir.us organisations for the introduction of Bible reading into the educational syllabus of the State. If persistence in an absolutely and obviously hopeless cause is a mark of merit, then the members of the Bible in Schools League have earned a title to the order of merit. Ever sinoe the establishment of the system of free,, secular and compulsory education in the dominion, leagues and committees have struggled to remove from that system the "reproach of Godlessness," as they term the elimination of the Bible from the State schools. They have met with rebuffs innumerable, but no success whatever; and if they could only be brought to see how self-condemnatory and illogical their well-meaning efforts are, they would accept the inevitable as the best. The State system rests upon the bedrock of justice and common sense in so far as its exclusion of sectarianism is concerned, and nothing will ever shake that basic portion of the 1 educational structure. If it were possible for the League to accomplish its end, the end of the end would come soon; for with, the divergent and irreconcilable views upon theological questions held by the people of the dominion there would speedily be a sort of Kilkenny cat fight for supremacy, ending in a Cadmean victory. The advocates of the cause of Bible reading in State schools have been told over and over again by every Government since the founda--1 tion of the secular system that the Church, the Sunday school, the home, and the sectarian class are the proper places for Bible reading and religious instruction, and the people have consistently upheld ths contention. However, the branch of the Bible in Schools League in Wellington is about to make another •effort to "impress upon the Premier the necessity of adding Bible reading to the educational system of this dominion," and with that end in view they will deputationise the head of the Government on Monday next. The League is not likely to be successful, and we cannot wish it success.