provoked the usual reaction, the usual determination that we will not allow our ways to be reformed without a struggle. “Advanced” teachers fight with Conservative teachers and politicians (particularly of the vestry type), and the familiar old hymn-tunes are heard throughout the land. We must not weaken parental responsibility: we must not lessen the charm of the domestic circle: we must not encroach on the sphere of the Church: we must beware of Socialism: we must resist the thin end of the wedge wherever we see one.
Why did the State, in the first half of the nineteenth century, undertake the task of educating the young? I do not mean that State-education was a new thing in history when a few European Governments adopted it little over a century ago. The Roman Empire had had a very fair system of municipal and State-education, and it is one of the gravest charges against the clergy that they suffered it to decay, and allowed or compelled ninety per cent, of their followers to remain in a state of gross ignorance for fourteen hundred years. At the end of the eighteenth century, as the revolt against ecclesiastical authority spread, the idea of State-education was revived. In England the clergy warmly resisted the progress of the idea, but the appalling ignorance of the people proved intolerable to the increasing band of reformers. Quakers like Lancaster and Agnostics like Robert Owen demanded and provided schools for the children of the workers, and the Church of England was forced
