XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS 387 



says, " the monster hath two mouths : " the one, the 

 forward mouth, tells us very justly that the teaching 

 cannot "honestly" be "distinctly denominational;" 

 but the other, the backward mouth, asserts that it 

 must by no manner of means be " undenomina- 

 tional." Putting the two utterances together, I 

 can only interpret them to mean that the teaching 

 is to be " indistinctly denominational." If the 

 editor of the Guardian had not shown signs of 

 anger at my use of the term " theological fog," I 

 should have been tempted to suppose it must have 

 been what he had in his mind, under the name of 

 " indistinct denominationalism." But this reading 

 being plainly inadmissible, I can only imagine that 

 he inculcates the teaching of formulas common to 

 a number of denominations. 



But the Education Department has already told 

 the gentleman from Steyning that any such pro- 

 ceeding will be illegal. " According to a well-known 

 rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, ' denom- 

 ination' would be held to include ' denominations.' " 

 In other words, we must read the Act thus : 



" No religious catechism or religious formulary 

 which is distinctive of any particular denominations 

 shall be taught." 



Thus we are really very much indebted to the 

 editor of the Guardian and his correspondent. 

 The one has shown us that the sectaries mean to 

 try to get as much denominational teaching as they 

 can agree upon among themselves, forced into the 



c c 2 



