SUPERINTENDENT'S LETTER.

White Ribbon, Volume 32, Issue 376, 18 October 1926, Page 14

SUPERINTENDENT'S LETTER.

SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE. Dear Sisters, I am so glad to know' that many I’nions this year are doing very definite work in the presentation of facts at definite times in yjjr meetings, and some have written .no for Pamphlet No. 13, that were planning for Essay work in the Schools.

You will be glad to know, the Alliance, through the Educational Department are supplying a definite schedule of Temperance fac*s, graded for classes in the T *acher’s Handbook. While this is a help, if the Teacher cares to use it, it ir n>* sufficient We have, if we will exercise it, a chance to do some real service by laying plans now' for the next election of the School Boards. The ground work is there if w f e get a sympathetic School Board; we can get a contest spirit aroused, and a seeking out of information will bring a request for material. We can’t expect Teachers to use anything that won’t count in their school programme. Women! its up to us to make it count. Over 40 years of education on these lines in Canadian and American schools, and yet w*e have their mistakes to guide us more quickly to success, and we have to start right now to catch up. If you find at present it is impossible to get into a Day School, I suggest you group your District Sunday Schools, stipulating age and sect, and offer medals or prizes worth while; select your Judges from the Day Schools; arrange a splendid programme us you New Zealanders’ can always do ; work in a Temperance

Play if you like, and have the presentations made by a Member of Parliament, "our Minister of Education” of whom we are justly proud, if possible, or some other successful man in your own District. If we “achieve great things, we must attempt great things ’; everything with a means to the end. We are striving through difficulties and sacrifice. If we can t get into the School now, let us concentrate on the fibre of our School Board for next year; in thpt way you can gain access to the District Council, and thence to the School Board. The facts w r e have must be backed by New Zealand men and women of scientific knowledge to make it effective. We w’ould be so glad to gather this material together, and make our own statements from men and w’omen in New Zealand. We look forward to this in the future; until then we have on hand “Alcohol and other narcotics.” “Science and Human Life in the Alcohol Problem.”—C. F. Stoddard. “The World’s New Day and Alcohol.”—C. F. Stoddard. Methods of teaching Temperance, and a number of helpful pamphlets to loan, as a means of help. Yours in W.R. Bonds, G. CATCHPOLE. BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. Dear Sisters, We are all feeling sad and somew’hat discouraged, although not cast down, by the failure of the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill. Having encouraged ourselves in the Lord, we shall go forward with renewed will and sustained effort till the Bible is restored to the Public Schools of New Zealand. I would remind our readers that we /ire not trying an experiment, for a convincing proof already exists of the harmonious working of Religious Exercises in Schools; in that every Secondary' School Teacher begins the day’s Mvork with a Bible Lesson. Then, why in the name of all that is fair and Just, should the children attending Public Schools be deprived of hearing the w'ord of God which would be “a light to their feet, and a lanio to their paths.” Apart from religion altogether, as literature, the Bible towers among

the classics. Why deny the children the great privilege of hearing thif Book of books read? It is P 0 y*an next year since the Bible w’as banished from the Public Scnoola of Net Zealand. Although a Jubilee, it causes sadness to contemplate. Let us, by prayer and effort, mark the occasion by restoring the Bible to th* Public Schools of New Zealand. With this bright anticipation, let us go forward to victory. Sincerely yours, MARY C. COOK, N.Z. Surd. Bible-in-Schools