1871 BIBLE-READING IN SCHOOLS 31 



Mr. W. H. Smith, the well-known member of 

 Parliament, proposed, and Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., 

 seconded, a resolution in favour of religious leaching 

 " That, in the schools provided by the Board, the Bible 

 shall be read, and there shall be given therefrom such 

 explanations and such instruction in the principles of 

 religion and morality as are suited to the capacities of 

 children," with certain provisos. Several antagonistic 

 amendments were proposed ; but Prof. Huxley gave his 

 support to Mr. Smith's resolutions, which, however, he 

 thought might be trimmed and amended in a way that 

 the Rev. Dr. Angus had suggested. His speech, defining 

 his own position, was a very remarkable one. He said " it 

 was assumed in the public mind that this question of 

 religious instruction was a little family quarrel between 

 the different sects of Protestantism on the one hand, and 

 the old Catholic Church on the other. Side by side with 

 this much shivered and splintered Protestantism of theirs, 

 and with the united fabric of the Catholic Church (not 

 so strong temporally as she used to be, otherwise he might 

 not have been addressing them at that moment), there 

 was a third party growing up into very considerable and 

 daily increasing significance, which had nothing to do 

 with either of those great parties, and which was pushing 

 its own way independent of them, having its own religion 

 and its own morality, which rested in no way whatever 

 on the foundations of the other two." He thought that 

 " the action of the Board should be guided and influenced 

 very much by the consideration of this third great aspect 

 of things," which he called the scientific aspect, for want 

 of a better name. 



" It had been very justly said that they had a great 

 mass of low half-instructed population which owed what 

 little redemption from ignorance and barbarism it 

 possessed mainly to the efforts of the clergy of the 

 different denominations. Any system of gaining the 

 attention of these people to these matters must be a 



