The first election for the Metropolitan School Board seems likely
to give a good result, though as yet there is a good deal of confusion in the attempt to mediate between the various Local Committees. Professor Huxley and Miss Garrett are both mentioned as candidates, and both will, or ought to be, elected,—as contributing what the School Board is not likely to get from any other quarter. Miss Garrett, M.D., professes herself quite favourable to religious teaching of a liberal kind, and as far as we can see, BO do the great majority of the Candidates,—some of the so-called working- men's candidates not even excepted, if we may judge by Mr. George Potter's rather artful address, in which he opposes all religious teaching that is not included in "an open Bible." Miss Garrett is also heartily in favour of compulsion. An effort made on Thursday to form a central committee, which should take as its professed object the bringing forward and sifting out of the best candidates (i.e., the best-informed candi- dates in an educational sense) from the local lists, irrespective of special opinions, failed through the very natural fear of the local committees, all of which had been created with the object of supporting religious teaching, that this would issue in a compro- mise with the Secularists. Nevertheless, some selective process of the kind is greatly needed, and it can hardly be managed without some sort of compromise with the Secularists.
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