Mr. Auberon Herbert and Mr. John Morley and others have
been keeping up quite a long controversy in the Times as to the merit of the Canadian Educational plan, which enables the rate- payer who prefers subscribing to a voluntary school of special views, legally to plead such a subscription in lieu of his education- rate. Mr. Auberon Herbert pleads for this extraordinary plan on the ground that it, and it alone, gives free play to the individualism of moral taste which it is right to cul- tivate in parents on questions of this kind; and Mr. Morley, of course, takes the view that education, being a municipal and national duty, should be looked after by the township and the State, and that no private and voluntary act can properly be admitted as an excuse for not performing what the claims of the community require. Indeed, while sympa- thising heartily with Mr. Auberon Herbert's wish to protect individualism, we do not see how to defend a proposal which really puts the discretion of a private individual on a par with the discretion of a public body. If the public body has no better means of determining what is, on the whole, right in the way of educational policy than a private individual, then such a public body should not exist. But if it has, then to let private persons prefer their own judgment and refuse their support to its policy, on the strength of their personal opinion, is to make public, authority cheap, and even absurd. It will not do to allow an alternative between deferring to public authority, and following your own taste.
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