Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/31

27 Minutes, and there is nothing in any minute agreed to by their Lordships which can either now or hereafter place you under any obligation, moral or legal, to regulate the religious instruction of your schools otherwise than you may conscientiously approve, or which can give any persons a claim for admission to those schools, except upon conditions which you may deem consistent with your duty."

In the same correspondence, some words of the present prime minister, Earl Russell, are quoted from the report of his speech in the House of Commons:—

The House will see that there is not only no trace in Sir J. K. Shuttleworth's letter of any either actual or contemplated interference with Church schools by way of a "Conscience Clause," but that the opposite principle is carefully affirmed. There is no trace, again, in Earl Russell's speech, of any idea of forcing children not of the Church of England into a Parish School, but only of what is just and equitable, viz.: that if Dissenters in a place should be dissatisfied, and should desire to be enabled by assistance from the State to have a school of their own wherein to teach their own children according to their own principles; they would, in Earl Russell's opinion, have a claim upon the body charged with the administration of the "Education Grant."

I published the correspondence, and preserved it. I am glad 1 did so. You see it comes out useful.