XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS 397 



Hence, when the great mass of the English 

 people declare that they want to have the children 

 in the elementary schools taught the Bible, and 

 when it is plain from the terms of the Act, the 

 dchates in and out of Parliament, and especially 

 the emphatic declarations of the Vice-President of 

 the Council, that it was intended that such Bible- 

 reading should be permitted, unless good cause 

 for prohibiting it could be shown, I do not see 

 what reason there is for opposing that wish. 

 Certainl}', I, individually, could with no shadow 

 of consistency oppose the teaching of the children 

 of other people to do that which my own children 

 are taught to do. And, even if the reading the 

 Bible were not, as I think it is, consonant with 

 political reason and justice, and with a desire to act 

 in the spirit of the education measure, I am dis- 

 posed to think it might still be well to read that 

 book in the elementary schools. 



I have always been strongly in favour of secular 

 education, in the sense of education without 

 theology; but I must confess I have been no less 

 seriously perplexed to know by what practical 

 measures the religious feeling, which is the essen- 

 tial basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the 

 present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these 

 matters, without the use of the Bible. The Pagan 

 moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble 

 Stoic, IMarcus Antonius, is too high and refined 

 for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole; 



