IL] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 39 



which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they con- 

 ceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On the other 

 side there was the proposition to make the schools secular intelligible 

 enough, but in the consideration of public opinion simply impossible 

 and there was the vague impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone 

 thoroughly tore to pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all school- 

 masters in the new schools should be strictly ' undenominational.' 

 The Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide 

 over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and the 

 ' unsectarian,' as distinct from the secular party of the League, by for- 

 bidding all distinctive ' catechisms and formularies,' which might have 

 the effect of openly assigning the schools to this or that religious body. 

 It refused, at the same time, to attempt the impossible task of defining 

 what was undenominational ; and its author even contended, if we 

 understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even indirectly, 

 interfere with the substantial teaching of any master in any school. 

 This assertion we always believed to be untenable ; we could not see 

 how, in the face of this clause, a distinctly denominational tone could 

 be honestly given to schools nominally general. But beyond this mere 

 suggestion of an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in 

 religious teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was 

 its limitation was it accepted by the Government and by the House. 



"But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing precisely 

 that which it refused to do. A ' formulary,' it seems, is a collection 

 of formulas, and formulas are simply propositions of whatever kind 

 touching religious faith. All such propositions, if they cannot be 

 accepted by all Christian denominations, are to be proscribed j and it 

 is added significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so 

 that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded, 

 lest it should interfere with their freedom and rights. Are we then to 

 fall back on the simple reading of the letter of the Bible 1 No ! this-, 

 it is granted, would be an 'unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to 

 give ' grammatical, geographical, or historical explanations ; ' but he is 

 to keep clear of ' theology proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes 

 great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which is not 

 opposed by some sect or other, from Roman Catholicism on the one 

 hand to Unitarianism on the other. It was not, perhaps, hard to see 

 that this difficulty would be started ; and to those who, like Professor 

 Huxley, look at it theoretically, without much practical experience of 

 schools, it may appear serious or unanswerable. But there is very 

 little in it practically ; when it is faced determinately and handled 

 firmly, it will soon shrink into its true dimensions. The class who are 

 least frightened at it are the school-teachers, simply because they 

 know most about it. It is quite clear that the school-managers must 



