The London School-Board Elections come off next Thursday, when we
hope to see a Board elected not inferior in vigour to the last, and containing, if possible, even more promise for the future. We should like to see a Board including a fair number of men of experience in the duties, a fair number of able young men, and a few able women. We should like also to see no very sharp line drawn between the friends of School-Board Schools and the friends of Voluntary Schools,—in other words, to see a few really large-minded Churchmen, like the Bishop of Manchester,—the Rev. John Oakley, one of the candidates for Hackney, appears to be such a one,—who would really prefer the School-Board school to the denominational school, where it was the more efficient, and who yet would not desire to destroy any good denominational school only to put a School-Board school in its place. We hope to see Mrs. Westlake elected for Marylebone, as she will prove, we believe, one of the most efficient members of the new Board,—Miss Helen Taylor (the late Mr. J. S. Mill's step- daughter, whose capacity is well known) returned for Lambeth,— and Mr. Sydney Buxton, the son of the late Mr. Charles Britton, who has inherited a good birthright both of philanthropic energy and of intellectual ability, returned for Westminster. Of -course, those who by their great services have won the confidence of the London electors, like Sir Charles Reed and Mr. Pieton (Haekney),
—Mr. Picton is a great secularist, but nevertheless a thoroughly earnest and excellent man,—Rev. A. Legge (Greenwich), and others, are sure of their return. Among Roman Catholics, we should be glad to see Mr. F. H. O'Donnell, who is a candidate for Chelsea, chosen. He is at least a Liberal as well as a Roman Catholic, and a man of large culture, which always goes for something in modifying Roman Catholic ideas. It is well to have representatives of all convictions, but also well to have to represent them, those who, while retaining their own, have come at least to understand faintly or fully those of others.
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