have been held in Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, &c. For the consideration of the Birmingham meeting the Council transmit a paper, which has been prepared by some members of the Council, and which appears to be worthy of serious attention."

On the paper you have in your hand you will find some subscriptions of unusually large amount for Birmingham; but I will venture to say that no subscription has given greater encouragement to the Provisional Committee than that from a working man, whose letter I am now going to read :

"Dear Sir,-Would you kindly forward me a prospectus or programme of the National Education League, of which I am informed you are president, and say if it is open to mechanics to become members, as I understand from the report of your Sheffield address. I am myself an engineer, and am at times utterly astonished at the fearful amount of ignorance among my fellow workmen. In the works in which I am foreman, out of 200 hands not 20 either read the daily papers or care for the welfare of their fellows. Sir, I assure you this is a deplorable fact, and if it was not for our glorious Free Library it would be much worse. If I can do anything towards improving this state of things I will willingly subscribe 7s. 6d. (a day's wages) every month. fifteen.

I know the want of education, as I could not write until I was If you could send me a few papers, so that I could interest my fellow-workmen in this good work, I should be pleased.”

Now, the programme of the meeting, which you have all read, tells you exactly what the course of business is to be. The arrangements are not, in some respects, so perfect as we could have wished, but they are the result of full and anxious consideration; and I hope, therefore, that if anyone should find that they are not quite what he thinks best, he will accept them as a whole, and try to be satisfied with them. One of the greatest difficulties which we have to encounter is that the time at our disposal is extremely short. We dare not ask our friends at a distance to come here for more than two days; but we have a great deal more work to do in those two days than we shall be able to get through to our satisfaction. We have had more papers sent to us than there will be time to read; and after the papers are read there will be, I am sorry to say, but very little time left for discussion. I have, therefore, to beg not only that papers may be read as quickly as possible, but that the speeches afterwards be as short and contain as much as possible. Next year, when we again have a

general meeting of members, we shall be better acquainted with each other, we shall know who are really the leading spirits in this movement throughout the country; and then our arrangements will no doubt be more perfect. There is one thing to which I wish most particularly to call your attention. It is that we are not met here for the purpose of discussing our principles. Our platform is already laid. We have accepted the bases of our constitution, and we must not stray from them. But we have met to discuss the best manner in which we can carry out our principles. Upon that part of the question we may differ, and we want all the light thrown upon it that it is possible for us to get. This meeting has been called, by mistake, a conference. It is not a conference. It is a meeting of the members of the League and their friends, pledged to a certain course of action. We are not answerable, as a League, for the individual opinions that will be expressed in the papers and in the discussions. We are only answerable for that programme, for that scheme, which has been circulated throughout the country; but it is right that I should explain one word in that scheme. We have had a great number of letters upon the subject, and I believe that there are differences of opinion upon it. There are some who do not understand what is meant when we say that "all schools aided by local rates" are to be "unsectarian." Now, what we mean by this word "unsectarian" is that in all national-rate schools it shall be prohibited to teach catechisms, creeds, or theological tenets peculiar to particular sects. These are not to be taught during school hours. But beyond this prohibition we are not going; we leave everything else to be decided by the school managers, who as the representatives of the ratepayers will follow the best guides in these matters, viz., the wishes of the inhabitants of their districts. School managers, for instance, will have power to permit or prohibit the use of the Bible; but if sanctioned it must be read without note or comment. Then they will also have power to grant or to refuse the use of class-rooms, out of school hours, for the purpose of religious instruction; but of course an unjust preference must not be given to particular sects. I trust we are all agreed that the best way of dealing with what is called the religious difficulty is to put it on one side. Having

decided to adopt the principle of excluding from the curriculum of our primary schools all those religious subjects about which there are differences of opinion, let us leave the carrying out of that principle to the school authorities in a spirit of generous confidence. A self-governing people ought to have faith in the discretion of representatives whom it chooses and can remove. I will now call upon the Secretary, Mr. Adams, to read letters from gentlemen who are unable to attend here to-day.

LETTERS.

Mr. FRANCIS ADAMS (Secretary) then read the following letters :--From Edward Miall, Esq., M.P.

Dear Mr. Dixon,

Welland House, Forest Hill, S. E., October 9th, 1869.

I find it quite impracticable so to arrange my engagements as to leave me at liberty to be present at the Education Conference, on Tuesday and Wednesday next. I much regret this, because I had hoped to derive from the papers to be read, and the discussions which may be had upon them, clearer views of one or two of the principles of the League than I can pretend to hold at present. I trust, however, that due care will be taken to give publicity to the proceedings, and that I and others who happen to be precluded from availing ourselves of your courteous invitation, will have an opportunity of making ourselves fully acquainted with what has been said and done at the Conference.

As I have already made you aware, I heartily concur in the "object" which the Conference has been assembled to promote, and generally in the "means" to be adopted with a view to it. I am anxious, however, to reserve my freedom of action, as well as of speech, to the extent which I will, with your leave, endeavour to describe.

With regard to the 6th article in the programme, that "the State or the local authorities shall have power to compel the attendance of children of suitable age, not otherwise receiving education,” I give in my adhesion to the principle involved. I confess I have tried hard to escape the necessity of acceding to a resort to compulsion in furtherance of the end we have in view, and have been driven only by the force of facts to surrender my objections to it. Consequently, I am a little more sensitive on this point than on others, and I can easily imagine modes of compulsion resorted to which I could not bring my mind to approve. I wish, therefore, while agreeing to the principle, to refrain from committing myself beforehand to any particular scheme for carrying it into effect.

As to free admission to all schools aided by local rates, I suggest that the provision should be coupled with this condition: That in every case in which a school is rate-supported, it should be by a separate rate, to be called a "SCHOOL RATE." In order to prevent that non-appreciation of education which would inevitably come of the idea that it can be got for nothing, every ratepayer should be made to understand distinctly that, in availing himself of a free school for his children, he is but receiving back in value that which in proportion to his means he has paid for. He will readily understand and feel this, if he is periodically called upon to pay a specific rate for the purpose, and I think he will be the less disposed to trifle with the right he has thus acquired.

My chief anxiety, however, is to guard myself from being committed, under the fourth article of the programme, to conclusions which in my honest judgment I reject. In that article, as now worded, I thoroughly concur. It is of the utmost importance that schools aided by local rates shall be unsectarian. Denominational education I take to be the greatest obstacle to National education. It causes an enormous waste of teaching power. It misleads a large proportion of the public as to the true end of public schools, and it serves to stereotype instead of softening down religious distinctions. I do not believe it to be in any sense necessary. The public, generally, do not care to perpetuate it. The demand for it is almost exclusively a clerical demand, and I think the time is come for attempting to get rid of it— cautiously and gradually, of course, but, in due time, effectually. But whilst I attach high importance to unsectarian education, I am bound to say that I do not feel obliged to exclude the religious element from rate-supported schools. I would not insist upon it as a condition of receiving public aid, but neither would I insist upon its being eliminated from primary education. Thus much, I think, might be safely left to the decision of the local authoritiesto be authorised to open and close their schools, if they please, with some catholic form of devotion, and to adopt the Bible as one of the books to be read; of course, protecting every parent from being compelled to subject his children to either. My reason is this: I feel convinced that if by "unsectarian" schools, the interpretation is to be the rigid exclusion of all religion from the schools, the nation will lose the very best teachers, for, cæteris paribus, they are the best teachers who bring a religious spirit and motive to their work. I am sure the working classes, as a body, would not care to shut out Christianity altogether from the schools to which they send their children. I think it would be a mistake so tightly to tie up the hands of teachers as to make all reference to the great facts and precepts of Christianity a forbidden thing to them. At any rate, it might well be left to the local authorities to exercise their free choice in the matter. Such being my opinion, I beg to hold myself uncommitted to the article in question, if by the epithet "unsectarian" be meant "necessarily and exclusively secular."

I have no objection to give public aid to schools confined to secular education; but I do not think it would be wise to impose upon local authorities the obligation to shut out the religious element to this extent.

Pardon the liberty I have taken, and believe me to be,

Dear Mr. Dixon,

Yours, very faithfully,

EDWARD MIALL.

GEORGE DIXON, Esq., M.P.

Dear Sir,

From J. C. Buckmaster, Esq.

St. John's Hill, Wandsworth, S. W., October 11th, 1869.

I regret very much that I am quite unable to accept your invitation for the 13th. I cheerfully give my adhesion to the general principles of the Education League, because I believe it offers the only equitable solution of the educational difficulty. I wish the working classes (who are mostly interested in this matter) would give some expression of opinion on the subject, so as to help you and others in Parliament to obtain a national system of education. Hitherto all our arrangements for the education of the children of the working classes have been settled by the political influence of religious parties, and, to avoid as much as possible all difficulty, every denomination has been tempted to receive State assistance. The result is great waste of educational effort. I frequently find two or three schools in places with a population scarcely sufficient to maintain one with efficiency. We have the same number of inspectors without any concert with each other, going every year to the same place to do precisely the same work. Ever since the Committee of Council came into existence I have been in various ways connected with the present system, and I believe it was the only scheme at that time capable of meeting the enormous difficulties and resistance of religious bodies. This opposition, controlled, as it appeared to me, by no reason, was a great national calamity, and a source of much sorrow. I have carefully watched and taken part in the working of the present system, and I am reluctantly compelled to admit that the denominational system fails to accomplish its object. I have been for several years Churchwarden of the parish in which I reside. I have taught in elementary schools aided by the State, and Sunday schools, and when at home I go regularly to church on Sunday, and at the corner of almost every street I see a number of men with short pipes and unlaced boots, whose faces twenty years ago were familiar to me as pupils in the parish school and Sunday school. Why don't they go to some place of religious worship? When at the parish school they heard prayers and Scripture lessons every morning from students in the Training College-twice or three times a week lessons in the Catechism and Liturgy from the curate or vicar-twice on Sunday religious instruction in the Sunday school and two sermons; and where is the result of