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in particular. But these schools should not therefore forget the importance of the denominational principle to national well-being. In these schools, no less than in the former, though many denominations meet in them, it should be the denominational principle which the State should most earnestly desire to carry out in every possible way. Wherever and however it were possible, all facility should be given for the provision of denominational instruction for the children of all sorts of denominations. The whole of the direct religious instruction should be—if only it could be—denominational.
But this again would be too much to be practically hoped for. Denominationalism, that is to say organized religious conviction really definite and really alive, though encouraged to do the utmost that it could, would necessarily, it is to be feared, leave very much undone. It is in that case only, as the third alternative, to be fallen back upon as a makeshift, when both the more desirable methods have unhappily broken down, that there is a real place for "undenominational" teaching, that is, for the attempt to give some general foundation of religious knowledge, with a neutral intention, and apart from any particular convictions or ordinances. There may be very considerable importance in such teaching of religious knowledge, if conscientiously given, where more serious training in religion is unhappily impossible. Whether more satisfactory or less, it would at least be an honest attempt to supply deficiency, not a piece of religious oppression. As has been said already, it is undenominationalism all round, undenominationalism as a positive principle, with the positive prohibition of more serious training in religion, which is a tyranny wherever it is imposed by compulsion, and a tyranny of more and more galling character, just in proportion as the convictions which it overrides are more and more specific and profound.
