Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/11

7 "The British and Foreign School Society is the oldest of all the societies connected with education, and might for a considerable time have been regarded as the representative of all the bodies which were not satisfied with the principles of the National Society; but in the course of the last eighteen years the Wesleyans and the Independents have established boards of their own."

So much then for the general principle common to us all, and fatal, in my belief, to the establishment of any comprehensive system of school teaching here in England. It is for the Parish Schools of the Church of England, whether in union with the National Society or not in union with it, that I am concerned to speak in this place.

It is, then, the comprehensive or "State" system which is the darling project of the Committee of Council on Education. It has been so, as we have seen, from the first, and they have only abandoned it when they found themselves compelled to do so. In every way that appears to offer a prospect of encouragement, they are continually seeking to gain one or more steps towards it. The Order in Council, just cited, is one evidence; another is the fact that among their Forms of Trust Deed, published in 1840, there is one "for a parish school not being in union with the National Society, nor the British and Foreign School Society," and another "for a Church of England school, not being a parish school, nor in connection with the National or British and Foreign School Societies," which contain a Conscience Clause. In this way, while, in 1840, they knew what they were about too well to think of proposing anything of this nature for schools in union with the National Society, they tried to lay the foundations in Parish Schools not in union with the National Society for the comprehensive system. But it is a significant fact in the history of this question, and I commend it to the especial attention of the House, that when you