In South Australia Bible reading is permissible, but comment on the text forbidden.  It is yet too early to pass a definite judgment on the new systems, but it is already evident that the teaching in the State schools is much better than in those denominational schools which survive.  Vigorous efforts are still being made by the Roman Catholic Church, with some aid from the Anglicans, if not to upset the new schools, which has become impossible, at least to regain a subsidy for their own, but, I fancy, with less and less chance of success every year, in spite of the fact that in Victoria the agitation is at present especially strong.  The fact is, that while a large number of people agree that purely secular education is to be deplored, no feasible scheme can be propounded for introducing religious instruction into the State schools which will satisfy the demands of the Catholics.  The Protestant denominations might without difficulty agree upon a common platform, and it is on the cards that they may, in spite of the Catholic opposition, succeed in introducing a modicum of religious instruction into the State schools.  The Catholics maintain that false religious teaching is worse than no religious teaching, and will be satisfied with nothing less than a subsidy to their own schools.

In spite of the yearly immigration of a number of children too old to learn to read and write in Australia, statistics show that in 1878, out of 100 boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 21, no less than 93 could read and write—­a result which must be considered creditable to the old ‘arrangements.’  But what the statistics cannot show is the meaning of that phrase ‘read and write.’  It is in quality far more than in quantity that the teaching of the State schools is superior.  To my thinking, one of the best superficial proofs of their success is the number of middle-class children who are sent to them even in the towns.  Previously these children had often grown to be nine or ten years old without schooling or teaching of any kind, and even now much of the time of the secondary schools is wasted in teaching simple primary subjects, which ought to have been at the boy’s fingers-ends before he came to them.

With the exception of an experimental higher school for girls, recently established at Adelaide, the State in Victoria and South Australia takes no part in providing secondary education.  In New South Wales it has begun to do so, but as yet only on a very limited scale.  To meet the wants of the colonists in this respect, two classes of schools have been established:  denominational and private venture.  The first class have often got good foundations, and taken as a whole they may be compared to the middle-class schools, which have recently been established in several parts of England, the two or three best rising decidedly above the level of the best of these, but not being able to reach that of English public schools even of the second class.  Nor in spite of the vigorous