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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 83

What an Inspector of Schools Thinks of Bible Reading in Schools. — Extract From Report of Inspector Hill, Napier District

What an Inspector of Schools Thinks of Bible Reading in Schools.

Extract From Report of Inspector Hill, Napier District.

"Moral Training.—Before concluding this report, I venture to draw the attention of the Board to what I consider an important omission in the new education system now being introduced. When the Govenment decides upon a national plan of education, it is absolutely necessary to inquire what subjects should be taught in the schools, and why they should be taught. To be complete, the training of children should be of three kinds—mental, physical, moral. Any system of education which does not recognize these three is necessarily imperfect, and cannot produce the results indispensable to the well-being of a community. The recent system deals with the mental and physical training of children, but I regret to find that direct moral training has been entirely ignored. Why, I am at a loss to understand, for, after many years' experience as a teacher, I am fully convinced that the moral training of childdren cannot be neglected. In my opinion it is a vicious system to teach children to imagine that the culture of the intelligence is 'the be-all and the end-all' in learning. Because we have a nation of educated men, it does not follow that virtue and integrity will abound, but both these qualities are essential to the well-being of a nation, and moral training is the fountain-head from whence these qualities proceed. Mr. Lancaster, writing upon moral training, says: 'The province of the schools is to train children in the practice of such moral habits as are conductive to the welfare of society, as well as to impart instruction in useful learning.' Now that the Bible has been expunged from the list of school-books as issued by the department, practically there is no standard of morality to be recognized by the teachers, but I sincerely hope that the present educational machinery, good as it is in many points, may be perfected by permitting the introduction of the Bible as a reading-book into the public schools, guarded only by the adoption of a conscience clause, similar to that adopted by the Home Government.

—I have, &c.,

"H. Hill, B.A.

, Inspector of Schools.

"J. D. Ormond, Esq.

, "Chairman Hawkes Bay Education Board."