NONCONFORMISTS AND THE ELECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I suppose there is nothing to do but to correct for the hundredth time such misstatements as those made for the hundredth time by such men as your correspondent " Non- conformist" last week. There are not "nearly eight thousand schools in England now entirely supported by public funds from which any Nonconformist is barred from being either Head-Master or Head-Mistress." If any one will compare the cost to any education authority of the schools—Council schools—which they have to support entirely, and the Church, Roman Catholic, and Wesleyan schools, which they are required to keep equally efficient, he will see how large a contribution is made by the supply of buildings and premises, and by the great amount of voluntary work and cherishing which is still done by managers, even though little power is left them except the selection of teachers from those whose educational qualifications, duties, and remuneration are all fixed by the public authority. "Nonconformist" has, of course, a perfect right to argue that the price paid for these contributions is too high, and that the arrangement leaves wrongs which Nonconformists ought never to submit to ; but it is not open to him to go on repeating a misleading statement as the ground of his argument, and the apparent necessity of so doing after eight years of controversy, which should at least have made the facts clear, may account for the slowness of a truth- and justice-loving people to redress his grievance.—I am, Bulnter BeCtory, York
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