A Conference on the Education question summoned by the National
Education League a the Evangelical Free Churches met on Tuesday at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, under the presidency of the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers, and determined on what he very justly called an " aggressive" policy. We are not aware that any one has proposed that the denomina- tional tenets of any Church should be taught either in the Board-schools or elsewhere "at the public expense." It was pro- posed to make arrangements by which any reasonable number of parents who desired their children to receive a definite religions education should be permitted to have their own teacher in any convenient place, even if it were a room of the public school not needed for any other purpose ; but it was never proposed that such a denominational teacher should be paid,—as the Conference seemed to assume,—by the School Board or by the proceeds of rates or taxes. Mr. Guinness Rogers declared for insisting on every school that received public money being " subjected to the control of the people's representatives,"—which means abolishing voluntary manage- ment altogether. What the Conference virtually agreed to was that voluntary schools should be starved out unless they subjected themselves absolutely to popular control. It was determined to advocate the principle of universal School Boards and universal unsectarian education. How unsectarian education is to be defined they do not say. Is it to be satis- factory to agnostic parents or not? If it is, how is it to be- religious ? If not, how is it to be nnsectarian? To force unsectarianism on the children of parents,—say Roman Catholics or Calvinists,—who prefer a special religion, seems to be as bigoted a policy as was ever pursued by priests or despots.
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