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228 majorities, the clergy, through the minority of their followers, could only secure the exclusion of the subject from the agenda. Neither do the majority of teachers desire it; while educationists, as a whole, resent this grievous complication of their work. Nothing but the complete secularisation of all schools receiving funds from the nation or municipality will enable us to advance. The clergy must do their own work on their own premises. The moral pretext is a thin disguise of an effort to use the nation’s resources and authority for the purpose of attaching children to the churches.

Writers on the subject are not wholly agreed whether we ought to substitute moral lessons for the discarded Bible lessons. We can in such a matter proceed only on probabilities, and it seems to me that judicious lessons for the training of character are very desirable. I do not so much mean abstract or direct lessons on the various qualities of character. If such lessons (on truthfulness, honesty, manliness, etc.) were tactfully and sensibly conducted, they could be of great service. There is really not much danger of turning the average British schoolboy into a prig. But indirect lessons, especially from history and biography, should be more effective.

In either case our teachers would need special training for the lessons, and no philosophic or religious or anti-religious view of moral principles should be admitted. Experience has surely shown how little use there is in giving children a “