On Monday Mr. Balfour addressed the Parents' League on religious
education. The League, which was created nine months ago, has a membership of over seventy thousand, and its principle is "the right of the parent to determine the religious education of his children in elementary schools." Mr. Balfour laid it down that the sacrifices made by the Church of England cannot be treated as nothing ; that "contracting out" is an impossible solution of the religious difficulty; and that no settlement would be acceptable which gave preferential treatment to Roman Catholics. Bearing these principles in mind, he concluded that the only alternative was between secular education and a plan for "increasing as far as possible the control of the parents over the religion taught to their children, combined with some effective method of teaching that religion." Having dismissed the thought of secular educa- tion, Mr. Balfour declared that "if you mean, and in so far as it is found necessary, to alter the present system you must modify the system in Voluntary schools and break down that most anomalous and indefensible arrangement,—the Cowper-Temple Clause." That seems to us a most dangerous and most erroneous statement. We cannot for a moment admit that the Cowper-Temple teaching is necessarily a vague expression of the elements of Christianity ; but if it were it could scarcely be more cloudy than the principles which Mr. Balfour would substitute for that which has stood stoutly between the country and the disaster of secular education.
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