HUXLEY 27 



ance of ideas which he regarded as erroneous, or 

 even mischievous. He failed to realise how 

 strongly they who believe the whole Bible to be 

 the word of God, and hold its teachings to be the 

 only guide of life, would resent bits of it being 

 used to enforce moral laws of human invention, 

 while the rest of it was ignored or disparaged. 



What he had hoped to be a compromise of 

 peace became, even in his time, and since his 

 death has still more become, like so many other 

 practical compromises, a mother of strife. He 

 did not, even in his last days, repent the com- 

 promise; since through it, it seemed to him, 

 " twenty years of reasonably good primary educa- 

 tion had been secured." But he did not regard it 

 as final. He was forced to admit that the teach- 

 ing of the duties of life according to natural or, 

 as it is sometimes called, secular knowledge, that 

 which he believed to be the true teaching must 

 stand by itself alone and not attempt to make use 

 of any other kind of teaching. It was clear to 

 him that, so soon as it could be brought about, 

 the State must limit itself to teaching the things 

 which belong to natural knowledge and these 

 only, leaving other bodies to teach other things in 

 their own way, offering to all equal opportunities, 

 but meddling with none and directly favouring 

 none. He avowed his conviction that " the prin- 

 ciple of strict secularity in State education is 

 sound and must eventually prevail." 



His zeal for education did not stop, however, at 



