Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/14

2 I must ask the favour of your patient attention, on the understanding that I will be as succinct as I can.

I. And first as to the history of the Conscience Clause. In this, as in every other controversy, the history of the question throws the clearest light upon its principle and intention. Its history is, in fact, its best defence, as it puts it at once upon the hard ground of practical necessity. But for this I should feel that some apology is due to many who, like myself, are ready to justify the clause upon its own merits, and are likely to be somewhat impatient of a tedious explanation of its origin. Besides, however, the general advantage resulting from such an inquiry, it alone can enable me to justify the friendly remonstrance which I believe ought to be made, and which I intend to make, against the attitude taken up by the National Society, acting as it claims to do, by its very name, and as to a great extent it practically does, in the name of the National Church.

I believe that the following will be found a perfectly accurate sketch of its general outline. The Conscience Clause is really no new thing. It is not an innovation in its essence, though a comparative novelty in its present form. Council Office, National Society, promoters of schools, have been familiar with the difficulty which lies at the root of it from the first. The earliest trust deeds published for the guidance of managers of other than Church of England schools, and even of some of these, contained a rudimentary Conscience Clause—a Conscience Clause in germ.

Up to the year 1839, the Parliamentary grant, amounting to some £30,000 per annum, appears to have been equally divided between the two societies which existed to promote education, and which were supposed to cover the whole field between them—the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society. The rather disturbed state of the country at that period caused more attention to be directed to the need of education, and in that year (April 10, 1839) her Majesty appointed a Com-