Protestant Teachers in Canada Told to Consider Their Jewish Pupils

The Royal Commission on Education, which has been preparing a series of reports dealing with the overall practices in the various educational systems in Canada, recommended in its third volume in the series, issued today, that teachers in Protestant schools, which are attended by Jewish children, must be aware of the fact that many of their students are Jewish.

Proposing that two hours of religious education weekly “is sufficient” in the schools, the Royal Commission recommended that even such limited attention to religion in the schools be confined “to the moral training of children and adolescents first in the form of intellectual integrity and a sense of collective responsibility.” The report then noted; “One of the blinders of our system has, without doubt, been to gorge the child with religious theory, to fill his day with routine practices.”

“In the Protestant schools of Quebec, “the report continued, “the teaching of religion is not doctrinal, but based on commented readings of the Bible. The teacher must, therefore, make a clear distinction between the facts and his own comments, however well informed he may be. One must be aware that, in Montreal alone, out of 63,194 pupils in Protestant schools, 17,725 are Jewish, and that 20 per cent of the teaching body is also Jewish.”

The report noted that, among Jewish parents, “the obligation to give their children a religious background is a fundamental precept of their religion. The family, the synagogue and special Hebrew schools are used for this purpose.” The Commission also recommended that study of the Hebrew language be included among the elective courses in modern languages to be offered in schools which can “justify” such instruction.