38 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n. 



education, and who are either sectarian partisans, or 

 nothing. In my own particular division, a body orga- 

 nized ad hoc is moving heaven and earth to get the 

 seven seats filled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are 

 good Churchmen, and three no less good Dissenters. 

 But why should this seven times heated fiery furnace of 

 theological zeal be so desirous to ehed its genial warmth 

 over the London School Board ? Can it be that these 

 zealous sectaries mean to evade the solemn pledge given 

 in the Act ? 



" No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive 

 of any particular denomination shall be taught in the school." 



I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject 

 any such suggestion, as dishonouring to a number of 

 worthy persons, if it had not been for a leading article 

 and some correspondence which appeared in the Guardian 

 of November 9th, 1870. 



The Guardian is, as everybody knows, one of the 

 best of the " religious " newspapers ; and, personally, I 

 have every reason to speak highly of the fairness, and 

 indeed kindness, with which the editor is good enough 

 to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be so 

 objectionable to him as myself. I quote the following 

 passages from a leading article on a letter of mine, 

 therefore, with all respect, and with a genuine conviction 

 that the course of conduct advocated by the writer must 

 appear to him in a very different light from that under 

 which I see it ; 



"The first of these points is the interpretation which Professor 

 Huxley puts on the ' Cowper-Temple clause.' It is, in fact, that which 

 we foretold some time ago as likely to be forced upon it by those who 

 think with him. The clause itself was one of those compromises 

 which it is very difficult to define or to maintain logically. On the 

 one side was the simple freedom to School Boards to establish what 

 .schools they pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but agaiust 



