TEACHER. 283 



creed has been in them a condition to the reception of stu 

 dents and the conferring of distinctions ; and they have all 

 along preserved a teaching and discipline conspicuously 

 priestly. We have residence in colleges under a regime sug 

 gestive of the monastic; we have daily attendance at 

 prayers, also monastic in its associations; and we have the 

 wearing of a semi-priestly dress. But gradually the clerical 

 character of the education has been modified by the intro 

 duction of more and more non-religious subjects of instruc 

 tion, and by the relaxation of tests which a dominant eccle- 

 siasticism once imposed. So that now the greater part of 

 those who &quot; go to college/ do so without any intention of 

 entering the Church: university teaching has been in a 

 large measure secularised. 



Meanwhile the multiplied minor teaching institutions of 

 all grades, though they have in the majority of cases passed 

 into the hands of laymen, still, in considerable measure, and 

 especially throughout their higher grades, retain a clerical 

 character. The public schools in general are governed by 

 ecclesiastics; and most of the masters are, if not in orders, 

 preparing to take orders. Moreover, a large proportion of 

 the private schools throughout the kingdom to which the 

 wealthier classes send their sons, are carried on by clergy 

 men; and clergymen in multitudinous cases take private 

 pupils. Thus the differentiation of the teaching class from 

 the priestly class is even now incomplete. 



As significantly bearing on the evolution of the teacher, 

 let us further note that at the present moment there is 

 going on a struggle to re-acquire that clerical control which 

 a secularized system of public education had in chief meas 

 ure thrown off. Even when established a quarter of a cen 

 tury ago, this public education was not completely secular 

 ized, since certain biblical lessons were given; and now a 

 strenuous endeavour is being made to add to these biblical 

 lessons certain dogmas of the Christian creed established 

 by law, and so to make the teachers of Board Schools to a 



