The theological badgering of candidates for the office of school-
master in Birmingham, by the Birmingham School Board this week, is a thorough discredit to that Board, and a bad omen, not so much for the cause of religious as of national education of any kind. Just the same badgering might have taken place as to the mode in which the candidates would teach either history or morality,—indeed, as regards moral casuistry, it might have been much worse. As regards theology, a strong-minded candidate would have persisted in saying steadily that he did not intend to teach to the young distinctions to some extent at least too refined for them, and certainly inappropriate to a national school containing children of all kinds of faith. So easy and sound a reply could not have been given in relation either to morality or history.
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