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have never, so far as we know, protested against its right to assist the higher. What is still more remarkable is, that those who maintained this principle as though it were the only security of the intellectual freedom and moral energy of the country, were all the while hearty supporters of the London University. They were proud when their sons carried off its scholarships and its medals. They saw with satisfaction the names of Nonconformist students standing high amongst its graduates. They themselves wore degrees conferred by a University founded by a Royal Charter, and largely sustained by a parliamentary grant; and yet they argued that Government had no right to touch education. Even the difficulty about 'religious knowledge' did not trouble them. They enthroned on their shelves the shining prizes they had won by passing an examination in New Testament Greek and Old Testament Hebrew, and in the Evidences of the Christian religion, although the prizes were purchased by a parliamentary vote. They did not see that their theory was as fatal to the University of which they were the ornaments, as to any national school in the country.

But it is urged that we Nonconformists object to Government teaching religion, and that it is impossible to separate secular from religious teaching. We should have supposed that nothing could be easier; we are sure that nothing can be more common. To us the great difficulty appears to lie not in separating, but in blending them.

That a Government inspector can pronounce on the secular results of a school, and determine the grants which are due to it for its success in secular teaching, without touching the religious creed either of master or scholars, is certain. A Jew may spell as accurately as a Christian; a little Mormon may say his multiplication table as glibly as a little Churchman; there is nothing in their handwriting-or is there ?—to distinguish a Roman Catholic from a Baptist. It is equally certain that a master may set a copy without conveying to the boys his private views on original sin, and it would require some ingenuity so to explain the Rule of Three as to give a bias in favour of the three sacred orders of the English Church. The doctrine that secular and religious studies are inseparable is one of the oddest of fancies. A man may have all the mathematics necessary for a senior wrangler, and yet know nothing either of the three Creeds or the Ten Commandments.

But though mere instruction may be purely secular, is it possible for a schoolmaster not to exert some religious influence over his scholars? Apart from direct religious teaching, which

the State may exclude from the school, or from which parents may be at liberty to withdraw their children, must not the religious faith of every teacher have a powerful effect on the character of his pupils; and if the teacher is in any way sus tained by the State, is not the State providing for the religious education of the people? In reply to this, it may be freely conceded, that the personal influence of public servants may sometimes be a very sufficient reason for removing them from office. This involves one of the most perplexing questions which a liberal politician can ever have to solve. But the principle of Nonconformity, as such, is not involved in the problem. Nonconformity does not require that any man should be excluded from the service of the State, simply because he has strong religious convictions,-convictions which may derive very solid support and very valuable influence from his official position. There is no doubt that the religious character of Sir John Lawrence renders his presence in Calcutta a very great advantage to Christian Missions in India; but no Nonconformist imagines that this is a reason for removing him from the Governor-Generalship. The devout earnestness of Sir Henry Havelock must have had a great effect on the moral and religious condition of his regiment; but we never supposed that this was a reason for removing him from the army. politics of Mr. Bright are penetrated through and through with the spirit and principles of his early religious training; his speeches have at times such religious gravity, that Lord Palmerston once ventured to speak of him in debate as the reverend gentleman;' but must he, because of this, never become a servant of the Crown? Mr. Gladstone cannot speak or act without manifesting the intensity and depth of his religious faith; virtue goes out of him; but must he, therefore, never be Prime Minister? Some schoolmasters may exert considerable religious influence over the children under their care; but there is nothing in the principle of Nonconformity which implies that therefore the State should not pay them for their secular teaching.

The

We think that these considerations should remove the scruples of those Nonconformists who still hesitate about receiving the grants of the Privy Council. Let it be admitted that the State may legitimately contribute towards the secular instruction of the poor, and there seems to be no reason why the State should not assist us to instruct them. The fact that, in addition to giving secular instruction, we have the Bible read in our schools, is no reason for refusing the grant. An officer is paid for discharging his military duties; if, in addition

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to discharging these, he holds a prayer-meeting among his men, the principle of Nonconformity does not require that his pay should be withheld.

But it may be replied, that unless the Bible is read in a school, the Government will make no grants for secular instruction, and that this is an interference with the religious freedom of the nation. Conceded; and we should do our best to remove the injustice. And if the Government should grant a colonel's commission only to religious men, on the ground that religious men made the best colonels, this would be a gross injustice too; but with the enemy's army in Kent, it would not be the part of a good patriot to refuse a commission because of a regulation which excluded other men from defending the State who had as good a right to do it as himself; and we cannot see that the injustice involved in the exclusion of purely secular schools from the benefit of Government grants and Government inspection is an adequate reason against our taking our fair share, under the circumstances most likely to secure success, in the great struggle with the ignorance of the people.

It is no man's duty to refuse his own rights because the rights of other men are not conceded. We never heard of a tradesman who refused to receive payment of his own bill because his next-door neighbour was unable to get his account settled. If some eccentric gentleman said to his butcher, I will pay you because you have family prayers every day; but I 'shall put off the baker as long as I can, because I know that the miserable fellow never opens a Bible,' the butcher would probably make sure of his own money first, and then remonstrate with his customer for his injustice to his neighbour. Or to take a graver illustration: the Toleration Act granted a slight measure of religious liberty, under rigid conditions, to all who were willing to subscribe to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England; it was an atrocious crime to refuse the same freedom to men whose creed rendered subscription impossible; but the Nonconformists of those days do not appear to have thought that they were bound to refuse the partial concession of their own rights, because the benefits of the Act were sternly denied to Unitarians and Romanists.

There are some who say that they should have no scruple about receiving aid for religious schools, if the 'religious' clause in the Revised Code were cancelled. They do not object to Government aiding schools in which the Bible is read; but while the reading of the Bible is made indispensable they will have no aid. This seems to us a most unfortunate refinement. It is said that there were cabs which carried lamps up to the

very night that Sir Richard Mayne's order was issued making lamps imperative, and that then the lamps were unanimously extinguished. Our friends do not merely put out their lamps on the ground that they are required to carry them; they take their cabs off the stand altogether.

Our last illustration may be regarded as unfortunate, since the cab-strike secured the repeal of the obnoxious regulation. But the school strike' of Nonconformists against the religious conditions on which the Privy Council makes its grants has had no effect. It is very probable that that condition may soon disappear; perhaps it will have vanished before these pages are in the hands of our readers; but its removal will not be owing to the general refusal of Nonconformists for twenty years to touch Government money, but to other and far mightier forces. Many of the clergy of the English Church have discovered that to secure their own schools against a 'conscience clause' which they hate, it is their best policy to protest against any interference on the part of the Privy Council with the religious creed of school managers. It is their policy, not ours—or rather it is the strength of the new electors who are believed to be unfriendly to the denominational system altogether-which makes the change imminent.

If we had to construct a scheme of national education for the country, assuredly we should not dream of proposing a plan having the slightest resemblance to that at present administered by the Committee of Privy Council. Heart and soul, we should prefer a system of secular education administered by local boards and maintained by local rates, supplemented by grants from the national exchequer, and under the inspection of a National Board. But we must start from where we are; and from what we have said it will be inferred that, in our judg ment, the first duty of Nonconformists is to re-consider their relations to the present Government system. The principle of granting aid to denominational schools will not be abandoned for many years to come, unless the Church of Engl: nd obstinately refuses to accept some slight but necessary changes in the terms on which the aid is granted. The House of Commons, as some one said a year or two ago-we think it was Mr. Lowe-is a public meeting of school managers; and the day is as yet remote when any minister of the Crown will have the courage to ask them to consent to the virtual abolition of the schools of which they are the patrons. Nor will any practical statesman desire that these schools should disappear. No doubt, the present system involves some grave evils; but it also secures

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many great and obvious advantages. The schools it has created exist; they are educating a million children; as a rule, they are far more efficient, whatever their imperfections, than other schools of the same class. Very many of them are zealously supported and energetically worked. In thousands of parishes, the parochial school is the clergyman's 'hobby'; it is a point of honour with him to get a good report from the inspector; his school occupies his time; he spends more money upon it than upon his greenhouse; it gives useful and pleasant employment to his wife and daughters; the squire and the squire's lady patronise it; it is the duty of the visitors at the Hall to admire the school-building, and to examine with interest the needlework of the girls and the copy-books of the boys; the schoolmistress plays the harmonium at church; the schoolmaster sings bass in the choir. A statesman will argue that no such interest is likely to be felt about a school under the management of a parochial board and supported by parochial rates; that it is a very great matter to make the parson and the parson's wife, the lord of the manor and his lady, the allies of the teacher; that their personal influence will do more to get the children to school than anything else short of a compulsory law; and that their frequent presence in the school-room must sustain the authority of the master and mistress, and improve the habits of the scholars.

It will also be felt by all those who have no particular theory of national education to maintain-and we feel it very strongly ourselves that the sacrifices and exertions of the clergy, especially during the last twenty years, on behalf of their schools, deserve to be remembered and acknowledged. In the rural districts, though the Hall may patronise the school, the Rectory supports it. Mr. Fraser, one of the assistant commissioners in 1858, collected the financial statistics of 168 schools in Herefordshire and Dorsetshire, and his report is singularly instructive. Out of a total of 1,028 subscribers-less than seven on an average to each school- he found that

£

£ s. d.

169 clergymen contributed 1,782 or 10 10 0 each.

'The rental of the 399 landowners is estimated at £650,000 a year.'

Similar statements came from other parts of the country. 'I visited,' says Mr. Cumin, one country parish in which the