Many think that there is not much difference between secular and rationalist education, and in various articles and propagandist speeches the two were taken to be synonymous. In order to correct this error I published the following article in the Bulletin:— The word education should not be accompanied by any qualification. It means simply the need and duty of the generation which is in the full development of its powers to prepare the rising generation and admit it to the patrimony of human knowledge. This is an entirely rational ideal, and it will be fully realised in some future age, when men are wholly freed from their prejudices and superstitions. In our efforts to realise this ideal we find ourselves confronted with religious education and political education: to these we must oppose rational and scientific instruction. The type of religious education is that given in the clerical and convent schools of all countries; it consists of the smallest possible quantity of useful knowledge and a good deal of Christian doctrine and sacred history. Political education is the kind established some time ago in France, after the fall of the Empire, the object of which is to exalt patriotism and represent the actual public administration as the instrument of the common welfare. Sometimes the qualification free or secular is applied abusively and maliciously to education, in order to distract or alienate public opinion. Orthodox people, for instance, call free schools certain schools which they establish in opposition to the really free tendency of modern pædagogy; and many are called secular schools which are really political, patriotic, and anti-humanitarian. Rational education is lifted above these illiberal forms. It has, in the first place, no regard to religious education, because science has shown that the story of creation is a myth and the gods legendary; and therefore religious education takes advantage of the credulity of the parents and the ignorance of the children, maintaining the belief in a supernatural being to whom people may address all kinds of prayers. This ancient belief, still unfortunately widespread, has done a great deal of harm, and will continue to do so as long as it persists. The mission of education is to show the child, by purely scientific methods, that the more knowledge we have of natural products, their qualities, and the way to use them, the more industrial, scientific, and artistic commodities we shall have for the support and comfort of life, and men and women will issue in larger numbers from our schools with a determination to cultivate every branch of knowledge and action, under the guidance of reason and the inspiration of science and art, which will adorn life and reform society.