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any incident of any lesson freely and naturally, any occurrence in school, or in play, or in outside affairs which will give a more living concrete illustration to what he wishes to teach. As has been stated, the Bible, being the basifl of all tin contentions of the sects, cannot fairly he introduced into the State schools as a liasis of instruction; but, apart from this, it is necessary to note that the claim that we must directly use the Bible for all training of character is a relic of the bygone days when all subjects were taught in a logical., formal, mechanical, abstract way; when every subject was started mi tin , rules and principles, ami definitions, and laws, and children were required to learn by heart what the\- did no , understand in short, the old cram system, which has given way to the present more natural way. One exponent of the proposed scheme declared that children "take in " theology more readily than adults do. Probably they do. Canon l.yttelton. D.1).. Headmaster of Eton, though an advocate of religious education of a natural t\pe, says in his book, "The Coriier Stone of Eduoation " (page 2.'i9), "We quarrel unceasingly about the religious education in our elementary schools, forgetting that whatever it is it will be too weak to counteract the endless evils of home neglect." Bishop Julius, of Christohurch, an advocate of the scheme of religious instruction proposed in the Bill, said in a public meeting, " Undenominational religious teaching was not religious teaching nor anything like it." Mr. Holmes. e\ Senior Inspector of Primary Schools, England, says in hiss book. " What is and What might be" (page 99), "There are thousands of teachers whose personal influence is a partial antidote to the numbing poison that is being distilled slowly but surely from the daily Scripture lesson." He quotes another Inspector, who -ays. "It presents religion to them in a form which they instinctively reject, accepting it at first under compulsion, but turning from it at last with deep-seated weariness ami permanent distaste. The boy who says, when he leaves school. ' If this is religion 1 will have no more of it.' is acting in obedience to a healthy impulse." Both these men are ardent advocates of a free, unrestricted, voluntary form of religious instruction, but they heartily denounce mechanical teaching of the "greatest of all great matters." Holmes speaks of children who have been the "victims of upwards of two thousand 'Scripture lessons' by the time they leave school." The style of lesson advocated in the Bill before you is even more mechanical than those thus denounced. These aie advocates of the need I'm- religious instruction, yet they show unmistakably that any mechanical teaching of the form set oui for the teacher in the proposed Bill may not only fail to do good but has done positive harm. This is not the fault of the Bible or of religion. but of wrong methods ami conditions. Of all tho schemes that have been devised the scheme proposed lot- the teachers of New Zealand by this Hill is by far the most mechanical and barren. Though we do not in our present system thus offer the children the shallow without the substance of religious instruction, we do claim that we meet the growing needs of the child's character, and that by the type of boys and girls our system produces our claim is largely justified. The charge of secularism in the sense given by the Bible in Schools League rebounds on their own system. If our present instruction is anti-Bible, anti-religious, if it is dogmatic secularism, if it does not teach morality nor provide for the spiritual and moral nature of the child, then even under the proposed scheme there would be just that kind of instruction for at least twentyone hours a week out of twenty-five. The blighting effects of secularism would be on the children, and only tho present alleged defective methods of moral training would be operating. Those who advocate religious instruction in schools must advocate ;h i the religious instruction shall continue as required throughout the whole of the school day. The child's nature does not alter as soon as the Bible lesson is over. Inspector Holmes, almve quoted, says, " Far from wishing to limit its religious activities to tin 1 first forty minutes of the day, 1 hold that it should be actively religious throughout every minute of the school session ; that whatever it does it should do all to t hi' glory of God." This would require, however, a denominational school. The League propose to shut off in a watertight compartment of the first half-hour of the day what is calls religious instruction, and then for the rest of the day this religious element is not required. All educationists would denounce this artificial distinction. Geography or drawing cannot go on all day, but character-building does; and if religious instruction is confined to one lesson, what is to become of oharacter during the rest of tin day? —just what goes on now : what is called " morality without religion " —dogmatic secularism. The Best Moral Text-book. But the League says thai if we claim to teach morality, why not use the best moral text-book : why not go to the source of Christian morality, the Bible; why not place in the children's hands the best text-book in the world on morality? This may look sound, but, apart from the now much-discredited teaching from text-books in primary schools, there is the point that educational principles, in harmony with the child-nature, principles that are proved sound in the teaching of every other subject, are opposed to this claim for the final text-book. When a teacher teaches geography or nature-study he does not put into the child's hands the most complete, the most exhaustive, the most fundamental text-book on these subjects. When he teaches history he does not give the child the historic documents, the constitutional principles, and the history-book that surpasses all other books on history. WTien he teaches drawing he does not give the child the finest book on perspective and on the principles of optics which are the authority for these principles. These books are for the teacher; he cannot know too much of them even for the simplest form of teaching. He makes them his own, and in the light of his mature and wide study, as one who knows the end from the beginning, he deals in the concrete, the actual, the practical, with the children, keeping within the range of the child's present experience. The book which gives the last word, the sum total, the highest perfection of knowledge on any subject would be the worst to teach children from, particularly when tin teacher is forbidden to do more than hear it read.

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