Seeking a Remedy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 19, 7 May 1903, Page 1

Seeking a Remedy

' So when a raging fever burns, We twist from side to side by turns ; And 'tis a poor relief we gain, To change the place but keep the pain '

In our leading columns of last week we referred to the manner in which the religious leaders and guides of our non-Catholic fellow-colonists have been, year after year, shifting from position to position in their efforts to find a remedy for the nagging evils of our present godless system of public instruction After our remarks had been dressed up in type, a clerical writer in the ' Otago Daily Times ' gave a brief resume of a few of those variations. They began with the open adoption of the Protestant principle of ' Bible-reading without note or comment.' They gradually swung lound a big segment of the circle of possible positions on the subject, and, at last week's Bible-in-schools Conference in Wellington, they paused, for the time being, at a programme of Biblereading with comment, which includes elementary dogmatic and other religious instruction. But the remedy for the godlessness of our public schools is not to bo found in the diluted form of Evangelicalism proposed by tho Wellington Conference. By the latest proposal to which they have shifted, our Protestant friends merely ' chango the place. but keep the pain.' The real remedy lies deeper. It has many a time and oft been pointed out in our columns. It is in active operation in Canada, England, and Germany And it is sectarian, rather than political, considerations that stand in the way of its adoption in Australia and New Zealand. The new platform of the Bible-in-schools people will probably be submitted to a referendum of the electors of New Zealand during the year. But there are more problems involved in the scheme that can be finally settled by a count of heads.