The Story of the House of Cassell
moral conviction by seeming to promulgate the doctrine that it might wilfully neglect an alliance with education while it must teach some form of dogmatic religion. . . . We wish that every child should receive religious training, but we maintain that the State has no rightful claim to select a particular form of faith. There are good citizens attached to every form of Christianity, but the fulfilment of duty to the State is impossible without mental cultivation, and as the State demands this duty of everyone, it follows that it is the function of the State, if necessary, to educate all children to the ability of fulfilling this requirement.
"These and many other measures of internal reform await the attention of the new Ministry, and abroad we look to them to consolidate the policy of non-intervention. . . . The territory of Europe is not yet apportioned with one regard to the interests and wishes of the people . . . but it is evident that the interests of the governed will in future exercise more sway than any dynastic considerations, and we shall best further the surest safeguard of peace by permitting its development."
The first office of the Echo, from which this proclamation issued, was in Catherine Street, Strand: the building had originally been the Pantheon Theatre. Arnold thus records the reception given by the public to his first number: "There was a small crowd in Catherine Street where I had placed a trusty friend to catch the first criticism. 'It ain't 'arf as big as the Telegraph,' was the earliest comment. This sense of inadequacy was just, and on January 12, 1869, when the Echo was little more than a month old, the size was doubled, and the journal, though differently folded, attained the bulk it ever after preserved. Our first difficulty was sale; the railway stalls were unfriendly; the penny postage prohibitory. We started with a brigade of boys in Echo uniforms, but their tunics were soon disposed of without regard to our interests, and the Echo boy dressed as he pleased. . . . The trade absolutely declined to have any-
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