a man of genius as its chief priest and leader, he will entirely reverse the policy of his great predecessors from Bishop Broughton to Bishop Moorhouse. What benefit has accrued to that Church from the powerful assistance it has rendered to the Roman Catholics in opposition to the State schools? None; except it be to "dis-Australianise" herself. If a man of the commanding ability and restless energy of Dr. Moorhouse could not stem the tide, what hope is there for a lesser man? Instead of opposing the State school system which is the inevitable outcome of the social condition of the country, how much wiser it would be for the Anglicans and Presbyterians, whose zeal, learning, and piety are widely recognised and revered, to assist to widen the school curriculum, and to aid instead of thwart the State schoolmaster.
Had such men as Bishop Perry and Bishop Moorhouse, from the first, countenanced this essential educational reform, whereby Victorian children were to go to school "in common" at the public expense, they could have demanded a just compromise on the subject of religion, and caused to be brought into force a measure similar to the Public Instruction Act of 1880, which Sir Henry Parkes
