26 DECEMBER 1914, Page 17

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

[TO TRH EDITOR OP THS SPECTATOR."]

SIR,—In your issue of December 12th your review of the Babasaheb's Impressions of British Life and Character empha- sizes the religious Indian's view of religious education. An aged vicar (now retired) used, on Empire Day or the Sunday after, to deliver and disseminate in his parish an avowedly

political discourse. May I quote an extract ?—

" I divide in my own mind all schools throughout the Empire into two dames, Christian and non-Christian, simply. For all Christian schools I would prescribe a National syllabus—viz., the four Gospels of our Lord Jesus Christ in Authorised, Revised, or Rhenish Version, and enjoining on Jews, Mohammedans, Indians, Aro , in their own schools, the instruction of their own scholars in their own sacred books, or in portions of them."

Well does your writer observe, " Tolerance need not mean