6 NOVEMBER 1869, Page 3

The Education Union,—the body in favour of supplementing denominational schools

by others, where such others are needed, at the discretion of the Privy Council,—has met this week at Manchester, and several able answers were given to the assaults of the Unsectarian Education League held a fortnight ago at Birmingham. The most vehement advocates of the latter body,—for instance, the Pall Mall Gazette,—are thoroughly un- fair to the former, assuming that the Education Union is not in favour of universal education, and that only the Education League is. Nothing can be more explicitly contrary to the fact. Both bodies are equally aware of the immense deficiencies of the present system, and both propose a complete and, as they believe, .equally adequate remedy, differing on certain points as to the method. It is very convenient to speak of the one system as 'comprehensive,' and the other as a poor palliative. But that is the very point in dispute ; and it is irrational and bigoted to assume it without argument.