by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did not mean mathematics and geography." That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious freedom, aspire. I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is commonly used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme, Lord Morley points out that the essential virtue of a small reform--the quality which makes it not an evil, but a good--is that it should be made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater reform which is desiderated. Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I suppose that the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to see--the ideal of national instruction--is that the State should provide for every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating his or her natural gifts to the highest perfection which they are capable of attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not only to the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, the body and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, by a natural and orderly development, should conduct the capable child from the Elementary School, through all the intermediate stages, to the highest honours of the Universities. The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A good many children may be unable to profit by any instruction higher than that provided by the Elementary School. A good many more will be able to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few--the best--will make their way to really high attainment, and will become, at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or scholars, or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians.