Sir William Harcourt is overjoyed at the rise of the
educa- tional controversy. He sees in that controversy, we imagine, the first glimpse of light on the best mode of rallying the dis- heartened Gladstonians whom he is to lead in the House of Commons. He has written a letter (published in Monday's Times) to the Rev. John Haslam, of Bradford, the Genenl, Secretary of the Civil Rights Joint Committee of the Con- gregationalists and Baptists of Yorkshire, in which he coin. pliments that committee on the resolution it had passed in relation to the educational controversy ; and attacks the Bishop of London for the " frank cynicism of his avowal that the School Board of London had spent a great deal too much on buildings," and that in many cases they had, in his opinion, spent too much on salaries also. Further, he quotes a letter read by the Bishop to prove that the education given by the Board-schools is much better than the education given by the voluntary schools ; and he finds here the evidence that the friends of the voluntary schools wish to lower the standard of education generally, in order that they may not be outstripped in efficiency by the Board-schools. Sir William Harcourt is too eager to win an advantage over the friends of the Government. If the voluntary schools undergo the inspection of the Education Department, and come fully up to all that they require of them, we do not see how it can be said that they wish to reduce the standard of education. And it is certainly true that a good deal too much is spent on fancy subjects which a very small proportion of the children study, —mostly those who wish to earn their livelihood by teaching, —and that such expenditure adds more to the burden on the rates, than it does to the efficiency of teaching. We believe that the Bishop of London is a far more earnest devotee of education than Sir William Harcourt. And we hold that a thorough religious education does far more for the character of the children than even the best cramming in extra subjects.
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