Thatcher Advocates Religion in School Curriculum : Address: Former British prime minister’s endorsement of the practice stirs applause and debate at national school boards convention in Anaheim.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher touched off debate on a sensitive subject at the National School Boards Assn. convention on Sunday when she endorsed her nation’s practice of including religion in the public school curriculum.

Thatcher received rousing applause from the audience at the convention when she explained how religion is woven into the daily instruction at all public schools.

“Each school has to have a daily assembly, including a hymn and a prayer,” Thatcher said, her comments interrupted by hearty clapping. “This has the dual purpose of bringing everyone together as a school and for some students, the religious education is the only teaching of values they encounter.”

Thatcher’s remarks, which came near the beginning of an approximately one-hour speech at the Anaheim Convention Center, had many in the audience of more than 7,000 buzzing afterwards.

“I was a little taken aback by the reaction of the audience,” said Esther Stefaniw, president of the Washington State School Directors’ Assn. “For this body to embrace that kind of attitude, frankly, makes me nervous. This is America, and we worked so hard to have a separation of church and state.”

But others, including Winston Gleave, executive director of the Utah School Boards’ Assn., were more enthusiastic about Thatcher’s remarks on the topic.

“I liked her thoughts on school and prayer,” Gleave said. “I think school board members across the country feel strongly about teaching morality in schools.”

Thatcher, who once served as Britain’s Secretary of State for Education and Science, also spoke of the importance of ensuring that students acquire academic skills and self-esteem while they are still young.

“Unless we can rescue the children and give them confidence and someone who they can turn to, their deprivation will pass from one generation to another,” she said.

While Thatcher’s comments on education dominated the first part of her prepared speech, the 67-year-old former prime minister also used the occasion to speak out on a variety of historic events and current world affairs.

“Just as things seem to be more secure, they can change in a day, as events take unexpected turns,” Thatcher said as she discussed the breakup of the former Soviet Union, which she said was “an empire put together artificially.”

“Once that force (Communism) was removed, then all of the empires fell apart into their component nations,” she said. “Those countries can go about rebuilding a nation with more vigor and pride than they ever could have previously.”

Thatcher, who served as prime minister for 11 years before resigning in 1990, praised Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, whose “boldness” she said she admires. She said the United States and its allies should give financial support to Russia in its time of need.

“No nation can build confidence if it has near hyperinflation in its economy,” she said.

Thatcher also spoke of Bosnia, where she decried ethnic cleansing and other horrors and where she said the world’s “greatest trouble” currently exists.

“I never expected to see all of that without the West, under NATO, coming in effectively to stop it,” she said.

While much of Thatcher’s speech was serious in tone, she also managed a few lighter moments when discussing world history.

“I know we didn’t handle you very well,” Thatcher said as she talked about the cause of the Revolutionary War between her country and the United States.

“It wouldn’t have happened if there had been a woman in Downing Street.”