XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS 397 



for prohibiting it could be shown, I do not see 

 what reason there is for opposing that wish. 

 Certainly, I, individually, could with no shadow 

 of consistency oppose the teaching of the children 

 of other people to do that which my own children 

 are taught to do. And, even if the reading the Bible 

 were not, as I think it is, consonant with political 

 reason and justice, and with a desire to act in the 

 spirit of the education measure, I am disposed to 

 think it might still be well to read that book in the 

 elementary schools. 



I have always been strongly in favour of secular 

 education, in the sense of education without 

 theology ; but I must confess I have been no less 

 seriously perplexed to know by what practical 

 measures the religious feeling, which is the 

 essential basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the 

 present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these 

 matters, without the use of the Bible. The Pagan 

 moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble 

 Stoic, Marcus Antonius, is too high and refined 

 for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole ; 

 make the severest deductions which fair criticism 

 can dictate for shortcomings and positive errors ; 

 eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher would do, if 

 left to himself, all that it is not desirable for 

 children to occupy themselves with; and there 

 still remains in this old literature a vast residuum 

 of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider 

 the great historical fact that, for three centuries, 



