The real difficulty of unsectariau teaching, even on subjects not
religious, has just emerged in the London School Board,—in relation to history. A committee of that Board has actually felt the "delicacy "—that is their own term—of the matter so keenly that they recommended to the Board to use no English history for the children, but only a skeleton of facts and dates, and let the schoolmasters fill it up in their own fashion. That, as the Board at once observed, was worse than an evasion of the difficulty,—a relegation of it to persons much less able to deal with it. It would have been the mere ostrich policy of refusing to see the enemy, as a mode of escape from the danger, and the recommendation was referred back to the com- mittee to be reformed by a majority of 19 to 4. No doubt the difficulty is real. Even very young men have been brought up as children in good Mrs. Markham's amiable historical prejudices, but since that time both Catholics and Protestants, both Royalists and Republicans, have learned to try at least and face the bare facts courageously, without interposing any veil of false sentiment, and something might easily be obtained or pre- pared which neither Dr. Lingard, nor Mr. Freeman, nor Mr. Froude would characterise as quite unfair. To feed children on bare bones because there may be a dispute as to the relative wholesomeness of different kinds of meat, would be not feeding them at all ; and to leave it to their special teachers to cook the bones into broth or soup, would be to leave them far too much power.
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