THE EDUCATION QlTESTION.
[To TEE EDITOR OP TEX "SPECTATOR.,"]
Sra,—In the article on the education question in your last issue the statement is made that the Church of England was the fret to engage in the work of education. The Lancasterian Educational Institute, subsequently known as the British and Foreign Schools Association, was started in 1808, and was largely supported by the Nonconformists. It was not until the Church party was alarmed at the growing influence of the Nonconformists that the National Society for the Education of the Children of the.Poor was started in 1811. There is one aspect of the religious question which seems to have been overlooked. The children who are taught what is described as nndenominationalism (under the Cowper-Temple Clause) have nothing to unlearn, and are taught nothing contrary to the principles of either the Anglican or Romish faith, whose priests can build upon the foundation already laid their own particular dogmas in their own way and in their own time. Therein lies the injustice of teaching dogma in the nation's schools. The child of a Nonconformist can never escape the influence of the early training given in dogma, while the child of the Catholic parent has only to add to what is already learnt of the fundamentals of piety the tenets of his particular Church. If the Church party is not content with this founda- tion, then upon its shoulders must be laid the responsibility of driving the Bible out of the schools altogether.—I am,
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