It has been suggested at a meeting of schoolmasters this
week that if the time-table conscience clause be carried, there should always be some other secular class provided during the same 'hour for those who decline the religious teaching. This is, we -think, a perfectly fair demand. The Dissenters wish to provide that there shall be no propagandism, but they do not wish to give a new motive for idleness,—and undoubtedly, if no such alternative class were provided, children would constantly pester their parents into withdrawing them from the religious class, merely to gain the time for play. The time-table conscience clause is quite fair so far as it gives public notice of the precise hour of the religious teaching, for the purpose of prevent- ing any undue influence; but so far as it affords the means of perversion to other and quite different purposes, we are sure that the Dissenters themselves will not object to guard its operation.
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