Mr. Bright's attempt to disown all responsibility for the prin-
ciples of the Education Act has been challenged by a corre- spondent of the Times, writing under the signature of "Amiens Veritatis," who shows that he attended the Cabinet meetings long after the principles of the scheme had been, in all probability, sub- mitted to the Cabinet, and even after the Draft Bill had been laid before it. Mr. Bright admits, in a letter to the Times of Wednesday last, that he had seen the Draft Bill, and that his impression of it was "rather favourable," but maintains that he would never have sanctioned "the changes and concessions made during the Session of 1870, which alone I seriously condemn." " Amiens Veritatis " replies with overwhelming force on Thursday, that the changes and concessions in question were made to the Non- conformists, not to their opponents. "The year of grace" during which building grants were to be given to voluntary schools, a concession since so much objected to, was in the Draft Bill, and was cut down to four months, as far as regards the building grants, in the House. School Boards were allowed in the Draft Bill to grant subsidies to denominational schools, which power was not given to them in the Act as it paiund. In the Draft Bill there was no limit on the sectarian character of the teaching in School Board schools. In the Act, the Cowper-Temple clause, which banished catechisms and formularies from Board Schools, was adopted. Mr. Bright has overshot his mark. It was fair he should not be burdened with any great responsibility for a Bill considered when illness was hanging over him, and his mind preoccupied with the Irish Land Bill. But he should not have made this somewhat ungenerousand very unsuccessful attempt to. set up a still better case for himself at the expense of his colleagues, by attributing to the changes made in 1870 the elements of the Act which are most obnoxious to the Nanconlormists. So far as
Mr. Bright is responsible at all, he is responsible for a measure which would have been very much more heartily detested by Nonconformists than that which actually passed.
