Who Shall Teach, and what be Taught?

There are, then, two requisites for the success of this undertaking: first, that the teachers shall be well qualified, in creed and in spirit as well as in mind, for the work; and second, that only appropriate parts of the Book shall be taught. The first can only be attained by a system of religious tests, under which the teacher must come up to a prescribed standard, not of mere learning, but of faith and dogma. As we recognise this to be an impossibility I need not discuss it; but I must consider the alternative which is suggested—viz., that the ordinary teachers, appointed in the ordinary way, by the ordinary tests, shall do the teaching, but, subject to a double conscience clause—i.e., that any teacher who objects to giving these lessons need not do so, and any parent who objects may withdraw his child. This concession in the first place seriously mars the completeness of the proposed scheme, and at the same time admits the raison d'être of our secular system—namely, that religion stands on a totally different footing from all other subjects of education, and must receive a different treatment. If the present system is "godless," how are our reformers to justify the individual option in godlessness on the part of parent and teacher which their scheme allows? They are really not so thoroughly on the side of the angels as we are asked to believe.

But the individual option on the part of the teacher to decline to teach is a very small part of the difficulty. The element of local option will constitute