ion manifestly desires it?

The same kind of reasoning applies to the difficult question of
education, and especially of religious education. Every one who is
interested in the subject has his own conviction about the kind of
education which is in itself the best for the people, and also the best
for the Government to undertake. He may prefer that the State should
confine itself to purely secular education, leaving all religious
teaching to voluntary agencies; or he may approve of the kind of
undenominational religious teaching of the English School Board; or he
may be a strong partisan of one of the many forms of distinctly
accentuated denominational education. But when he comes to act as a
responsible legislator, he should feel that the question is not merely
what _he_ considers the best, but also what the parents of the children
most desire. It is true that the authority of parents is not absolutely
recognised. The conviction that certain things are essential to the
children, and to the well-being and vigour of the State, and the
conviction that parents are often by no means the best judges of this,
make legislators, on some important subjects, override the wishes of the
parents. The severe restrictions imposed on child labour; the
measure--unhappily now greatly relaxed--providing for children's
vaccination; and the legislation protecting children from ill treatment
by their parents, are illustrations, and the most extensive and
far-reaching of all exceptions is education. After much misgiving, both
parties in the State have arrived at the conclusion that it is essential
to the future of the children, and essential also to the maintenance of
the relative position of England in the great competition of nations,
that at least the rudiments of education should be made universal, and
they are also convinced that this is one of the truths which perfectly
ignorant parents are least competent to understand. Hence the system
which of late years has so rapidly extended of compulsory education.

Many nations have gone further, and have claimed for the State the right
of prescribing absolutely the kind of education that should be
permitted, or at least the kind of education which shall be exclusively
supported by State funds. In England this is not the case. A great
variety of forms of education corresponding to the wishes and opinions
of different classes of parents receive assistance from the State,
subject to the conditions