easy to give religious education "without teaching any dogma," and "avoiding all doctrinal points." Strange and paradoxical as the latter notion seems at first sight, it is by no means confined to schoolmasters. In fact, it is, just now, the popular, nay, almost universal feeling of religiously-minded laymen in England. Mr. Vernon Harcourt, himself son of a dignitary of the Church of England, and grandson of an archbishop, not only declared his own belief in it, but engaged to prove it to the House of Commons. (debate, June 16th). The day on which he gave this remarkable pledge was the feast of Corpus Christi; it is impossible not to think how two schoolmasters, one Catholic, the other Protestant, could give "undenominational" instruction on religious subjects on such a day, that day avoiding all doctrinal points. Mr. Gladstone confined himself to saying, what was enough for his object, that he did not know how to define in an Act of Parliament what was and what was not "denominational" and "sectarian." But we have little doubt that the majority even of the House, and certainly the majority of the country, are in this matter with Mr. Vernon Harcourt and the schoolmasters, not with the Premier. A conviction so general among a practical people like the English must have some real meaning, however confusedly that meaning may be held and expressed.

And from this feeling it is that the Secularists derive their only real strength. The mass of those who stand by them would recoil with horror from what they really mean, viz., that children should be brought up with no religion at all. So much do they themselves feel this that, as a general rule, they confine themselves to vague terms, which do not express what they really want, protests against "denominational" or "sectarian" teaching, and the like; and we are confident that not one man in a hundred among those who attend their meetings, and vote,-nay, even speak in support of their resolutions, have, like Mr. Winterbotham, clearness of head and knowledge of the subject sufficient to know, that what this really means is the exclusion of all religious teaching altogether. The Spectator thinks that this fear of saying what they mean is the real cause of the exceptional bitterness shown by the Secularists at the present moment. They are in the annoying position of men who have put themselves so prominently forward that they must say what they want, and who yet dare not speak out. If they openly and decidedly demanded that no religion at all should be taught, they would at once lose all their followers. If they do not, their demands become inconsistent and unreal. And so, as we have seen, while pressing for merely secular education, even Mr. Dixon says that they "have no wish to prevent teachers from making any incidental allusions to religion." What takes place at most of the public meetings of this party is really amusing.

The resolutions are, for the most part, "cut and dried"; and, to do the gentlemen on the platform justice, they usually move and second them, each in his turn with a degree of regularity which shows how resolved they are to support their party. But listen to the speeches. Half of them, at least, are to say that education must and shall, before all things, be really religious; and to declare that such an education may be given without meddling with controversial subjects. That is all that they want. Mr. Winterbotham, to do him justice, sees very clearly what this really means. He said at the Stroud Meeting (at which the speeches were exactly of this character) "Our Chairman [Mr. Marling, M. P. for West Gloucestershire] says, 'Let us have undenominational teachingsuch teaching as we can agree upon.' By all means; if we can agree upon religious education, have it. But how if we don't? Now, do we?" And then, answering the objection, that in the British schools such a system is actually adopted, he said, that those who support these schools are really only the Low Church party of the Established Church, the Baptists, Independents, Wesleyans, and other Methodists, but that it could not be stretched beyond them. If it were, the new wine would break the bottles. "The Unitarians have seceded from it. I do not think you could make it satisfactory to a consistent and logical Churchman. The Roman Catholics would have nothing to do with it. It comes, then, to this, that people who really do not differ at all would manage to sink their differences." This is the simple truth.

On the whole, then, we have watched, though not without anxiety, yet with thankfulness, the turn taken by this controversy. It has proved what we always believed, that although English Protestantism has so far entered upon its last stage, that the theological disputes by which it was originally divided already appear to most Protestants matters of no moment; they are still far from the state at which German, and we fear French, Protestantism long ago arrived, and to which they themselves are inevitably tending a state in which everything that can be called religion has utterly died out. And this confirms a conviction at which we long ago arrived, and which we here desire to record. We are satisfied that whatever degree of success the Secularists may obtain in Parliament, whatever law may be passed (and we are far from denying the great danger of laws passing which may do great mischief), still, neither secular nor yet undenominational education will really and practically be carried out in England. How the working of the law will be evaded, through what gap the wellknown coach-and-four will be driven, we do not undertake to predict. But, that some gap will be found, and that neither undenominational religious education, nor yet secular education will practically work in England, we are as sure as we can be of the

result of any conceivable experiment. This conviction is founded not on theory, but experience. The experiment has been tried; for instance, in Prussia. If ever there was a country in which it was likely to succeed, that country was Prussia, because submission to a central authority, regulating by something like military discipline all the affairs of life, was never carried farther. The law and the administration long enacted that mixed schools should everywhere be worked. Yet although the schools were maintained at public cost, and although education was compulsory, it was found, first, that in practice very few of the schools were really mixed; and next, that as far as they were so, the results had been in all respects bad. In so much that the attempt has now been given up, and although the law still allows a district to establish a mixed school, if such is the desire of the inhabitants, such schools are now never set up, and those which formerly existed are almost daily changed into denominational schools. Her Majesty's Commissioners reported last year" a general conviction among all practical men, that the denominational school is the only school that is at present possible in Germany."*

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In Holland and the United States secular (not undenominational) education is established by law, but it seems by the same report unlikely to be long maintained in operation. In Canada, although there is a system of secular education, it has already been found necessary to give the greatest facilities for the establishment of denominational schools, and they are rapidly spreading. Ireland, where a system professedly mixed was established in 1832, it has never been carried out. So far as it has worked well it has worked by being made really and practically denominational; so far as it is mixed it has worked so ill that the report delivered a few days ago by her Majesty's Commissioners, proposes that the attempt should be given up.

In a word, there is no one country in the world in which undenominational religious education has ever really worked, and

*Besides the valuable pamphlet, "Popular Education at Home and Abroad," which we have placed at the head of this article, we would specially refer our readers to a very valuable one published, we think, three years ago, by a Protestant gentleman who knows Prussia well, entitled "The Church of Rome under Protestant Governments," in which a very curious and instructive contrast is drawn, between the system adopted by the English Government in Ireland, and that adopted by the Prussian Government in its Catholic provinces. The difference, in one word, is this-the two Governments have proposed to themselves different objects. The object of the Prussian Government has been to make its Catholic subjects good, welleducated, and valuable citizens and soldiers. The object of the English Government has been, to adopt Archbishop Whately's expression, "to undermine the religion of the Irish." With these different objects in view it is not wonderful that very different means have been employed.

most assuredly if there is one people on earth among whom it is unlikely to work, it is the people of England, because there is none in which it is more opposed to the national habits, manners, and institutions, which are beyond anything else "denominational," and because there is none, among whom it is more hopeless to carry out by law any institution opposed to the popular sentiment. Quid leges sine moribus is indeed a maxim of universal appreciation. But if it had never applied anywhere else it would have been the characteristic of the English people. From all this we infer, without hesitation, that although at this moment the popular cry is for religious but undenominational education," yet the vast majority of those who raise it really mean the first half of what they say, and do not at all understand the absurdity of the last half; and we think, in fact, as it has been well expressed, that "religious Protestants care much more for the truths which they believe than for the nonsense which they only talk;" and we feel confident that the national system to be set up in obedience to this demand, if it works at all, will very soon be found to work (more or less satisfactorily) as a denominational system of one sort or another.

And this brings us to the consideration of the additional changes which, while this article has been in progress, Mr. Gladstone has proposed in the Government Bill.

He began by declaring that the Government could not accede to Mr. Vernon Harcourt's proposal, that religious instruction should be given in the schools to be provided by the rates, but that nothing should be taught characteristic of any denomination. In order to carry out such a law he must settle what undenominational religious teaching is; and this could only be done, either by "constituting a new religious code, by Act of Parliament, by a process of excision and amputation," or else by conferring Papal authority upon the Educational Department. Of course he might have added that neither plan could by possibility work. He then stated what he considered to be the essential principles of the Bill. First, that the national revenue was to be applied only for secular results; next, that the machinery of voluntary schools should be employed as far as it was available for our purpose; thirdly, that the principle of rating should be adopted only "by way of supplementing the gap left by the voluntary schools." To manage this local School Boards, chosen by free popular election, were to be empowered to erect schools, either secular or "with such degrees of religious teaching as they might in their judgment find best suited to the wants of the particular district they happen to represent. They were also empowered to give aid from the rates to the voluntary schools of the district, subject only to the condition, that in order to check the action of undue religious prejudice, they

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must give to all or none, and not make a selection between them.” He did not propose to modify the principles of the measure. Upon the point of "local discretion," however, i.e. the large powers proposed to be given to the School Boards, his views "had not been altogether realized." Then after going through the different objections raised, he said that Government now proposed that in the schools to be founded by the Boards, their discretion should be thus far limited, that although they may still found purely secular schools, or schools in which any degree or kind of religion should be taught, it must be subjected to this limitation, viz., that "no catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught." Next, with regard to the "voluntary schools," Mr. Gladstone saw that difficulties and inconveniences would arise in the working of the clause which enabled the School Boards to give to them aid from the rates, especially in consequence of "acrimony" with which the Roman Catholic schools would be regarded in the local boards. There would be danger of perpetual contests and frequent changes in the balance of opinion, in the Boards, by which assistance voted by one Board might be stopped by their successors. It seemed important, however, that there should be some prospect of permanence in the assistance thus granted,-permanence, that is, "not from generation to generation, but from year to year." To meet these difficulties, Mr. Gladstone proposed that the School Boards should have nothing to do with the voluntary schools, leaving them connected merely with the Educational Department of Government and dependent for public aid only on the Parliamentary Grant. But in doing this, "we must fulfil the engagements we have already entered into with the voluntary schools. We have held out, and I think, in every scheme of education that has been propounded, it has been held out, that in the competition with the rate-schools, they should receive some assistance towards lightening the burden of their expenditure." This he proposed to fulfil by increasing the allowance from the Parliamentary Grant. It must not however be so far increased as to infringe the principle of limiting it to secular results, i.e. aid given by Government to any voluntary school must fall short of what it would cost to maintain an equally good merely secular school. He proposes therefore to augment the grant to be given to schools (whether voluntary or founded by the rate), to a sum not to exceed one-half of the total cost. At the same time he proposes for the future not to make grants from the Privy Council towards the building, but only towards the annual expenses of schools.

Lastly, Mr. Gladstone threw out a hint that the year of grace, as it has been called, given to the friends of voluntary schools to supply the existing deficiency, after the amount of that deficiency