1871 BIBLE READING IN SCHOOLS 33 



produce upon the school children, circumstanced as 

 they were, is sometimes misunderstood to be an 

 endorsement of the vulgar idea of it. But it always 

 remained his belief "that the principle of strict 

 secularity in State education is sound, and must 

 eventually prevail." l 



His views on dogmatic teaching in State schools, 

 may be gathered further from two letters at the 

 period when an attempt was being made to upset the 

 so-called compromise. 



The first appeared in the Times of April 29, 

 1893 : 



Sir In a leading article of your issue of to-day you 

 state, with perfect accuracy, that I supported the arrange- 

 ment respecting religious instruction agreed to by the 

 London School Board in 1871, and hitherto undisturbed. 

 But you go on to say that " the persons who framed the 

 rule" intended it to include definite teaching of such 

 theological dogmas as the Incarnation. 



I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the 

 framers of the rule ; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that 

 any such interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I 

 should have opposed the arrangement to the best of my 

 ability. 



In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an 

 article in the Contemporary Review, entitled " The School 



1 As a result of some remarks of Mr. Clodd's on the matter in 

 Pioneers of Evolution, a correspondent, some time after, wrote to 

 him as follows : 



" In the report upon State Education in New Zealand, 1895, 

 drawn up by R. Laishly, the following occurs, p. 13 : 'Professor 

 Huxley gives me leave to state his opinion to be that the principle 

 of strict secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually 

 prevail.' " 



VOL. II D 



