The Bishop of St. Asaph made a sensible speech at
Rhyl on Thursday, at the Congress of the General Association of Church-School Managers and Teachers, on the subject of Free Education. It was too ]ate, he said, to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom of the measure itself, and what the friends of religious teaching should concentrate their attention upon was the necessity of not weakening financially the position of the Voluntary schools. He hoped that each school would be dealt with separately, and that the grant made for setting education free (which ought to extend to all the standards) should be made on a scale calculated on the fees charged in the school on an average for the last three or five years. That alone would prevent all danger of financial injury. But still more fatal than even financial injury would be the attempt to hamper the managers of Voluntary schools by an infusion of elective managers appointed by the ratepayers. Religious teaching is not of much value unless it be regular and authorised. Any attempt to hamper the religious authorities of the schools would be utterly fatal to the objects with which the schools were founded.
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