RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2721, 28 January 1910, Page 5

RELIGIOUS TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.

AX AUCKLAND PROPOSAL. [Per Presb Association.] AUCKLAND, Jan. 27. Miss Whitelaw, headmistress of the Girls’ Grammar School, has written to the Grammar School Board strongly urging that permission be granted to give Bible instruction in school hours, “x am absolutely convinced,” Miss Whitelaw wrote," “’of the benefit it would be to the girls individually, to the school as a whole, and therefore to the town and the Dominion. It is a matter which is, it seems to me, above argument.” The Board deferred consideration, the chairman being requested either to call a. special meeting or to bring the matter up at the Board’s February meeting. DISCUSSION IN WELLINGTON EDUCATION BOARD. WELLINGTON, Jan. 27. At the meeting of the Education Board to-day a request -was considered from the Te Aro School Committee that the Board’s regulations should be ameuded to allow the school to meet lialf-an-hour late one day in tlie week, this time to be occupied by the reading of the Bible to, or by, the pupils, no instruction to .be given except that- in the words of the Bible: Mr. .G. J- W: Aitken moved to so amend the regulations. Mr. R. Lee, chairman, said that he hoped that the motion would be rejected.' New' Zealand had done well in making its education secular, and should not go back. It was impossible to keep sectarianism out of the schools if the Bible were introduced. Several members of the Board considered the proposal contrary to the spirit of the' Education Act, and the motion was defeated by five votes to three.