50 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n. 



composed of human beings, ever did, or ever will, come 

 to much, unless their conduct was governed and guided 

 by the love of some ethical ideal. Undoubtedly, your 

 gutter child may be converted by mere intellectual drill 

 into " the subtlest of all the beasts of the field ; " but we 

 know what has become of the original of that descrip- 

 tion, and there is no need to increase the number of 

 those who imitate him successfully without being aided 

 by the rates. And if I were compelled to choose for one 

 of my own children, between a school in which real 

 religious instruction is given, and one without it, I should 

 prefer the former, even though the child might have to 

 take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenths of a 

 dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood ; but one swallows 

 it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial 

 effect of which may be weakened, but is not destroyed, 

 by the wooden dilution, unless in a few cases of excep- 

 tionally tender stomachs. 



Hence, when the great mass of the English people 

 declare that they want to have the children in the 

 elementary schools taught the Bible, arid when it is plain 

 from the terms of the Act, the debates in and out of 

 Parliament, and especially the emphatic declarations of 

 the Vice-President of the Council, that it was intended 

 that such Bible-reading should be permitted, unless good 

 cause 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. 



