raid that local opinion has exercised, habitually and
traditionally, too much influence in Ireland, and has greatly compromised
the character of the empire. _This_ question I take to be in most of its
aspects an imperial question." The proposal for a secret committee was the
occasion of a duel between him and Disraeli (Feb. 27, 1871)--"both," said
Lord Granville, "very able, but very bitter." The tory leader taunted Mr.
Gladstone for having recourse to such a proceeding, after posing as the
only man capable of dealing with the evils of Ireland, and backed by a
majority which had legalised confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, and
condoned high treason.

Chapter III. Education--The Career And The Talents. (1870)

He that taketh away-weights from the motions, doth the same as he
that addeth wings.--PYM.

I

Amid dire controversies that in all countries surround all questions of
the school, some believe the first government of Mr. Gladstone in its
dealing with education to have achieved its greatest constructive work.
Others think that, on the contrary, it threw away a noble chance. In the
new scheme of national education established in 1870, the head of the
government rather acquiesced than led. In his own words, his
responsibility was that of concurrence rather than of authorship. His
close absorption in the unfamiliar riddles of Irish land, besides the mass
of business incident to the office of prime minister, might well account
for his small share in the frame of the education bill. More than this,
however, his private interest in public education did not amount to zeal,
and it was at bottom the interest of a churchman. Mr. Gladstone afterwards
wrote to Lord Granville (June 14, '74), "I have never made greater
personal concessions of opinion than I did on the Education bill to the
united representations of Ripon and Forster." His share in the adjustments
of the Act was, as he said afterwards, a very simple one, and he found no
occasion either to differ from departmental colleagues, or to press upon
them any proposals of his own. If they had been dealing with an untouched
case, he would have preferred the Scotch plan, which allowed the local
school board to prescribe whatever religious education pleased it best.
Nor did he object to a strict limitation of all teaching paid for in
schools aided or provided out of public money, whether rate or tax, to
purely secular instruction. In that case, howev