The education authority of the Metropolis of England would, one supposes, have the advantage of the finest expert advice in the world. Enter one of the thousands of schools under its control, however, and ask how the training of character is conducted. A teacher informs you that at college he has learned only to impart "Biblical knowledge." He will show you a scheme of lessons founded on the Old and New Testament. The younger the child, the more preposterous the lesson. In the lower standards the child must learn the story of the Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, etc. It is still too young to imagine that its teacher may, at the command of our education authorities, be grossly deceiving it, or to perceive that these ancient Babylonian legends contain no particular incentive to virtue. When it passes to the higher standards it is initiated to some equally remarkable stories about the early history of mankind and the early conduct of the Deity. The teacher rarely believes these things, and it may be assumed that men like Mr. Sidney Webb, who voted for this scheme of education in the L.C.C., do not. If the child has intelligence enough to raise the question of veracity, it must be snubbed or deceived. A London teacher told me that on one occasion, when he had described some of the remarkable proceedings of the Israelites in ancient Palestine, a precocious youngster asked: "Please, sir, is it true?" Our education authorities forbid him to reply to such a question. Indeed, his headmaster was a Nonconformist (very zealous for Bible lessons), and would find a way to punish any departure from the appointed untruths. The lessons from the New Testament are, it is true, devoid of this atmosphere of Oriental animalism, ferocity, and superstition which clings to the Old Testament lesson, but here again the teacher is forced to violate the elementary principles of education. He must gravely tell the story of the miraculous birth, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ. He probably knows that some of the most learned divines in England and other countries regard these stories as false, but he must deliberately and solemnly tell the young that Christ was God and that these things are written in the "Word of God." He must repeat parables which we know to have been borrowed (and often spoiled in the borrowing) from the Jewish rabbis, yet teach that this was the unique feature of Christ's preaching. He must use all his ingenuity to wring a moral lesson out of the parables of the workers in the vineyard, the royal banquet, and so on. He must keep up this elaborate deception of the child until it leaves his care; and he knows that, in nine cases out of ten in London or any large city, the child is already hearing on all sides sneers at these ancient myths, and laughing at the system which inculcates them in the name of all that is most sacred.