The Irish bishops have formulated their demands as regards education.
With regard to primary education, they ask in effect that ia schools where there are no Protestant children, there should. he no restriction whatever on Roman Catholic distinctive teaching either as regards books or symbols ; that all the teachers should be Catholic, and that the priests should have full access to the schools ;—that in all mixed schools, where the children of either religion (the Catholic or the Protestant) are too few to be entitled to a separate grant, stringent conscience clauses should be enforced against proselytism, and that there should be established Catholic training-schools for teachers. We should say that it would be impossible and wrong for the State to pre- vent Catholic directors of purely Catholic schools doing what they please in the matter of religion, but it would be also impossible for the State to determine what their course should be. Let there be local School Boards, which in purely Catholic districts would be purely Catholic, in mixed districts, mixed ; and let them deter- mine on the religious instruction as they please, the State interfer- ing only to guard against proselytism on either side, and to see that no public grant is given except in respect of good secular teaching.
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