19 FEBRUARY 1870, Page 3

The Duke of Marlborough himself ought to be satisfied with

Mr. Forster's Education Bill, only that the Duke of Marlborough is never satisfied except with what all the rest of the world thinks short commons, if not starvation fare. lie made a speech on education this day week, at Oxford, "in support of the principle of extending and improving the existing system of religious education, as advocated by the National Education Union," and though Mr. Forster's Bill certainly cannot be described as one for extending and improving the existing system of religious education, it is one for improving it, and is not at all inconsistent even with its extension. At all events, the Duke of Marlborough's gloomy remark that " we have just now history repeating itself, but with this difference," that instead of a system of religious bigotry and intolerance, "you have now a set of men proposing to take away from you civil and religious liberty, and to produce in its stead an uniformity, not of one religion, but of no religion at all,"—certainly this out- burst of ducal gloom, we say, has no application to Mr. Forster's proposal. For anything we see in the Duke's speech, he might support Mr. Forster's measure. Only he will be sure to feel for it the sort of disgust which a miser feels when he sees ample pro- vision for ample wants.