[In taking up this position, Huxley expressly disclaimed any desire for a mere compromise to smooth over a difficulty.  He supported what appeared to be the only workable plan under the circumstances, though it was not his ideal; for he would not have used the Bible as the agency for introducing the religious and ethical idea into education if he had been dealing with a fresh and untouched population.

His appreciation of the literary and historical value of the Bible, and the effect it was likely to produce upon the school children, circumstanced as they were, is sometimes misunderstood to be an endorsement of the vulgar idea of it.  But it always remained his belief] “that the principle of strict secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually prevail.” [(As a result of some remarks of Mr. Clodd’s on the matter in “Pioneers of Evolution,” a correspondent, some time after, wrote to him as follows:—­

“In the report upon State Education in New Zealand, 1895, drawn up by R. Laishly, the following occurs, page 13:—­’Professor Huxley gives me leave to state his opinion to be that the principle of strict secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually prevail.’”

His views on dogmatic teaching in State schools, may be gathered further from two letters at the period when an attempt was being made to upset the so-called compromise.

The first appeared in the “Times” of April 29, 1893:—­]

Sir,

In a leading article of your issue of to-day you state, with perfect accuracy, that I supported the arrangement respecting religious instruction agreed to by the London School Board in 1871, and hitherto undisturbed.  But you go on to say that “the persons who framed the rule” intended it to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as the Incarnation.

I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers of the rule; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any such interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability.

In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an article in the “Contemporary Review,” entitled “The School Boards—­what they can do and what they may do,” in which I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such teaching as it is now proposed to include.  And I support my contention by the following citation from the speech delivered by Mr. Forster at the Birkbeck Institution in 1870:—­

["I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of the Bible what the children will be taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and that no efforts will be made to cram into their poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from understanding.”

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

T.H.  Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, April 28.