The questions I want to discuss are whether or not religious education can, and should, be part of what goes on in schools. These questions are important in themselves and the answers which I personally would give to them will become apparent as we proceed; but they are also important because they bring into focus more general questions, such as how we are to conceive of education as a whole and how we are to select, from among all the subjects which could conceivably be part of the school curriculum, those which we think ought to be. It is arguable that these larger questions are always best approached, not in the abstract, but with specific issues in mind like that which I have raised in my opening sentence. Such, at all events, is the way in which I intend to approach them here.