The new Minister of Education in Prussia, Herr Putkammer, is
strongly Conservative, not to Bay reactionary, and great in- terest has, therefore, been felt in his first utterances. He has been found, as against all clerical pretensions, unexpectedly strong upon the side of the State. The Catholic clergy of Munster, for example, had petitioned that religious in- struction might be restored in schools, but the Minister replied :—" The almost unanimous and systematic resistance of the elergyto the laws of the country has been, and still is, the cause of their exclusion from the schools of so many places. I deplore this state of affairs, for which the Government is not to blame ; but I can do nothing to bring about any essential change, until the Roman Catholic Church hits formally acknow- ledged the inalienable right of the State to make its own laws." Nevertheless, it is believed that Prince Bismarck, in his conferences with Cardinal jawbilli, at Grastein, has settled some mato rivendi between the Church and the State.
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