SIR,—I trust that I shall not seem lacking in appreciation
of the conspicuous fairness and intelligence of the Spectator in venturing some observations on your• argument in the issue of March 12th, that the French Government, in l,lop:.sing to take secular education out of the hands of the monks, is violating religious liberty. You say, not quite accurately, that " when a man is debarred by the State from teaching the doctrine in which he believes to children whose fathers wish them to learn it, it is nonsense to talk of religious liberty as established in France," and, further on, suggest that it is analogous to the State's forbidding a man to eat unwholesome food. An obvious suggestion is that even your own State does limit the right to purvey poisons and adulterated food, even though, at any rate in the former case, the purchaser may wish them,—and in the opinion of some Frenchmen these cases are parallel ; but I do not press this, as I thoroughly agree with you as to the right of every one to receive even mischievous instruction. But permit me to approach the question from another side. It is, I think, almost universally admitted in France and other countries that it is a proper State function to control, to superintend secular education. Hence compulsory school laws are not deemed tyrannical. This being so, may not the State exercise any discretion as to the character of the teachers ? Doubtless you would agree that France might say that no Prussian should be a secular teacher, or that no ignorant or immoral man should be. Is it, then, trar,s- gressing its legitimate function to say that a class of men whom it regards as at heart alien, as invincibly ignorant in history and science, and as lacking in the first principles of civic morality is disqualified to conduct secular schools If every French parent is at perfect liberty to have his children taught any religion by any teacher he pleases— being coerced only not to neglect their secular education in schools approved by the State—how is his religious liberty impaired ? At the most, it is simply a question of a trans- gression of a possible parental right absolutely to control his child's secular education,—a question which I do not under- stand to be in issue here. There is one more matter to which I would allude, if I may do so without offence. You say that the " singular condition of mind " of the French was " the mental condition of our own forefathers in the time of
Elizabeth," when your sturdy ancestors were possibly more familiar with the aims and methods of the Papal hierarchy than are the present inhabitants of your fortunate island. This consideration may make you more lenient toward those who are seeking to establish liberty on a solid foundation, but who believe themselves—as did your fathers—to be opposed by a stealthy and relentless enemy who seeks control of immature minds to further the cause of obscurantism and tyranny. Some Englishmen seem inclined now to be some- what ashamed of the Reformation, but surely the Spectator will not deny that your ancestors' measures seem to have
[Our• correspondent is right in thinking we are not ashamed of the Reformation. We hold it to be the foundation of all that is best in England and the English. But we also remember• that Cromwell and the Independents, who finished what the Reformation began, taught us to value toleration as "a natural right "—it is Cromwell's own phrase—which we must guard as jealously as liberty of conscience itself.— ED. Spectator.]
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