story, as moral teaching, as the Magna Charta of the poor
and of the oppressed, the most democratic book in the world, could not
be spared. The mass of the people should not be deprived of the
one great literature which is open to them; not shut out from the
perception of their relations with the whole past history of civilized
mankind, nor from an unpriestly view of Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth,
purged of the accretions of centuries. Accordingly, he supported Mr.
W.H. Smith's motion for Bible-reading, even against the champions of
immediate secularization; but for Bible-reading under such regulations
as would carry out for the children the intention of Mr. W.E.
Forster, the originator of the Education Act, that "in the reading and
explanation of the Bible... no efforts will be made to cram into their
poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents
them from understanding."

But the compromise was not permanently satisfactory. In 1893-94 the
clerical party on the School Board "denounced" the treaty agreed to
in 1871, and up till then undisputed, in the expectation of securing
a new one more favourable to themselves; and the _Times_, hurrying to
their support, did not hesitate to declare in a leading article that
"the persons who framed the rule" respecting religious instruction
intended to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as
the Incarnation.

In a letter to the _Times_ Huxley replied (April 29, 1893):--

I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers
of the rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such
interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have
opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability.

In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an
article in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled "The School
Boards--what they can do and what they may do," in which
I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such
teaching as it is now proposed to include.

And this contention he supported by the quotation from Mr. W.E.
Forster, given above.

Further, in October, 1894, he replied as follows to a correspondent
who had asked him whether flat adhesion to the compromise had not
made nonsense of a certain Bible lesson, which was the subject of much
comment:--

I am at one with you in hating "hush up" as I do all other
forms of lying; but I venture to submit that the compromise
of 1871 w