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
