The Education Bill Take first the School Attendance Bill. There
has been a most unfortunate revival of the old sectarian rigours. The discussions between Sir Charles Trevelyan and the various educational groups have been kept so• secret that little is really known about them except that they failed. The spokesmen of the Free Churches have been reasserting with a vigour which was familiar thirty years ago the doctrine that there must be no grants of public money for denominational schools without public control. One good sign is that some Liberals, and in particular certain Liberal newspapers, have freed them- selves from the old spirit of strife. They agree with the opinion which has always been expressed in the Spectator that the religious dispute was a growth of hot-house politics and that the parents who in former days were supposed to have been outraged in their feelings by grants to denominational schools were mostly political figments.
