Mr. Mundella made an interesting speech on the religious -effect
of the Education Bill, this day week, at the Crystal Palace, when distributing the prizes for Scriptural knowledge to -the children of the London Board Schools. In all the London Board Schools the Bible is read, with such explanations and religious instruction as are suited to the capacity of the children, -and but one complaint has been made by parents on that head since Mr. Mundella became Vice-President, in 1880, a complaint by a father, which, owing to the mother's remonstrance, was not persisted in ; and yet these London Board Schools deal with :300,000 children. On the passing of the Education Act in 1870, -only 2,000,000 children were under education in England and Scotland ; now there are 4,700,000, and almost all,—Mr. Mundella said "practically all,"—these children receive religions -instruction in the Board Schools or Denominational schools in which they are educated. A better test still of the effect of educa- tion on religious teaching is the increase, so far as it can be tested, -in attendance on Sunday-schools. There are now more than 4,000,000 children under Sunday-school teaching, and as the infants do not attend Sunday-schools, that is a larger attend- -awe of children above the age of infants in Sunday schools than there is in the day-schools. In other words, the increase -of secular education, instead of displacing, has largely increased, religions education.
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