evolution of
these to foster the growth of his religious sense. I can never feel
quite sure that this teacher fully realised how deeply, and yet
healthily, religious her children were. If she did not, I can but
apply to her what Diderot said to David the painter, when the latter
confessed that he had not intended to produce some artistic effect
which the former had discovered in one of his pictures: "Quoi! c'est
a votre insu? C'est encore mieux." To make children religious without
intending to do so is a profoundly significant achievement, for
it means that the fatal distinction between religious and secular
education has been "utterly abolished and destroyed."

Both these teachers fell, as it happened, under the ban of the
Diocesan Inspector's displeasure. The schoolmaster took over a
school which was not only inefficient in the eyes of the Education
Department, in respect of instruction and discipline, but was also
tainted in its upper classes with moral depravity. He speedily
restored it to efficiency, and reformed its moral tone. In
accomplishing these salutary changes, he relied mainly on an appeal
which he made, in all manly sincerity, to the religious sense of the
older boys. The faith in human nature which prompted him to make this
appeal was justified by the response which it evoked. In less than a
year the school was transformed beyond recognition. In less than two
years it was one of the best in its county; indeed in respect of
moral tone and religious atmosphere it was perhaps _the_ best.
Meanwhile the work of cramming the children for the yearly diocesan
examination must have fallen into arrears; for the school, which
under my friend's incompetent predecessor had always been classed as
"Excellent," sank to the level of "Good" in the year after he left,
and in the following year to the level of "Fair." Any one who has any
acquaintance with the reports of the Diocesan Inspector knows that
the summary mark "Fair," when employed by him, is equivalent to
utter damnation.

The schoolmistress always had a horror of formal teaching, and a
special horror of cramming young children for formal examinations;
and I can only wonder that her downfall was so long delayed. Sooner
or later, if she was to remain true to her own first principles, her
work was bound to incur the condemnation of the Diocesan Inspector.

Nevertheless, having read hundreds of diocesan reports, and realised
how lavish of praise and chary of bl