The Irish Independent of Wednesday week published a letter from
a correspondent who demanded the names of the " back- boneless Catholics " on the Board of Intermediate Education who had allowed Scott's Ivanhoe to be restored to the list of school reading-books. The correspondent says that some years ago he himself had called attention to the fact that schools were allowed to read " this objectionable and bigoted novel." It was forthwith removed by the Commissioners of National Education. Perhaps it will now be removed again. Such are the difficulties of education in Ireland, where people who share the views of this correspondent guide and form opinion. No further proofs are required of the urgent need of a new Education Bill in Ireland. Under the new Bill there will presumably be a Department which will not be frightened by bigots into boycotting Ivanhoe. Hitherto no teacher could receive an appointment unless he satisfied the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. Unfortu- nately this defeat is for all practical purposes preserved in the Bill, though of course the Bishops are not even now conciliated. They declare that the Bill does take away their power of appointment.
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