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by its founders with some religious body. The colleges of the University of London are a remarkable instance of this. Each of them is distinguished from the rest by its aspect towards religion. University College, which excludes religious instruction from its course, stands alone; but most of the affiliated colleges are connected with religious denominations, as King's College with the Church of England, and Stonyhurst and Oscott with the Roman Catholics. The controversies which have occurred in the course of the last twenty years, the difficulties which they have thrown in the way of the establishment of any comprehensive system, and their practical result in the establishment of the denominational Training Colleges and elementary schools, appear to us to place beyond all doubt the conclusion that the great body of the population are determined that religion and education must be closely connected, and we do not think that any other principle than that which is the base of the present system would secure this result.
"It has been supposed that the object of securing the religious character of education might be equally attained either by restricting the teaching given in the schools to points upon which different denominations agree, or by drawing a broad line between the religious and the secular instruction, and by providing that the religious instruction should be given at particular hours, and by the ministers of different denominations. We do not think that either of these expedients would be suitable to the state of feeling in this country.
"With respect to the plan of restricting the teaching to points agreed upon, we may refer to the history of the British and Foreign School Society. Undenominational teaching was its distinctive principle, but all the schools, including British and others which are founded on that principle, contain only about 14*4 per cent, of the scholars in public schools, whilst the remaining 85*6 per cent, are in denominational schools. The British schools are for the most part large schools in towns, and are usually established where the various dissenting bodies, not being numerous enough to establish denominational schools, prefer a British school to one connected with the Church of England. Religious communities, when able to do so, always appear to prefer schools of their own to schools on the undenominational principle.
