MR. LEATHAM AND MR. SEEBOHM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
:Sin,—With your permiqsion, I cannot allow Mr. Seebohm's reply to my letter of the previous week to pass without one word of rejoinder.
He complains of my " unfairness " in representing him to be -"satisfied" with getting children to school, no matter how bad the school, and " satisfied " with any policy which would force the .children of Dissenters into proselytizing Church schools.
Now of course it would be doing a great injustice to Mr. See- -bohm if I were to say that he is " satisfied " with these results; but I never said so. No doubt he would be glad to see existing schools rid of their admitted inefficiency and free from the taint of proselytizing, and the meaning which I did and do intend to con- vey is, that in his eagerness to proceed at once to "the education, .somehow or other, of every child in the kingdom," he accepts, and is prepared to make national and permanent, a system in which these defects are inherent, and from the extension of which these results must follow.
Nor is it any reply to me to allege, as you do, that, with my -views, I ought always to have opposed the educational votes as • " a mere throwing-away of public money." Bad as the Denomi- national system is, it is probably better than no system at all. What we regret is that the opportunity of replacing it by a better system has been thrown away ; and we maintain that it would not have been thrown away if time had been allowed for the ripening
-of public opinion.—I am, Sir, &c., E. A. LEATIIAM.
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