When the debate was continued on Wednesday M. Maurice Barres
satirised the " commandments" which are issued from the Ministry of Education, and remarked that one of them was: " We do not ask you to deny God, but merely to put Him in quarantine." M. Doumergue, the Minister of Educa- tion, declared the intention of the Government to demand the right of inspecting the free schools. It will be seen that the French problem is in one respect like our own; it is acute chiefly in places where there is but one school. We hope that M. Briand will continue his admirable policy of inter- preting the law without bitterness. We believe that both Roman Catholics and anti-Clerical teachers have made ridiculous alterations in books which did not fit in with their preconceptions. And it certainly cannot add anything to the just conception of an honest man for a teacher to tell a Roman Catholic child that it is unnecessary to be a Roman Catholic.
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