LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MR. J. S. MILL AND THE EDUCATION BILL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—Having full belief in your not intending to misrepresent,
though (if you will allow me to say so) not equal confidence in the carefulness and accuracy of all your representations, I do not doubt that you will permit me to correct a serious misstatement which pervades the whole of your last Saturday's comments on the Education meeting at St. James's Hall. The writer affirms again and again, with sundry uncomplimentary remarks on the incon- sistencies and other irrationalities therein implied, that in my speech at that meeting I advocated and asked for the system of the British Schools, which he describes as the merely formal read- ing of a portion of the Bible "as a kind of grace before meat to secular lessons." I challenge your writer to point out a single word of my speech which either expresses or implies approval of the "British system," or of the employment of the Bible in rate- supported schools at all. I referred to the British system only as a proof that the Dissenters do not desire their distinctive doctrines to be taught in schools, and would consequently derive no advan- tage from the fund which the Bill gives them, where they are the stronger party, of practising this injustice to the detriment of the Established Church.
For myself, though I regard the British system as greatly pre- ferable to the merely denominational, yet, on any other footing than as the less of two evils, I decidedly object to it, as unjust to Catholics, Jews, and Secularists, and for other reasons.—I am,
[We are exceedingly sorry to have misrepresented Mr. Mill, and of course absolutely withdraw the statement. We cannot, how- ever, admit that our blunder was anyone's fault but Mr. Mill's, at least if the Times' report of his speech is correct. In that he is stated to have said, "The system deliberately chosen by the Dissenters is that of the British Schools, where religious teaching is limited to reading the Bible without note or comment." There- after the whole tenor of the speech appeared to be supporting the demand of the Dissenters, and not a word was reported criticizing that demand as itself involving the very injustice of which Mr. Mill complained in the Government proposals, or stating, as we suppose he now states, that he would be satisfied with nothing but a purely secular system. We are not sorry to have drawn front him that avowal.—En. Spectator.]
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