Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/45

33 when each denomination is provided with school accommodation for the bulk of its own scholars, the general remnant unprovided for will still include some of each. Hence the clause is just as applicable to this section of a town population as to the smallest one-school parish in Wales. Moreover, many managers—I believe an increasing number both in town and country—will, as time goes on, voluntarily introduce the Conscience Clause, whether pressed upon them by the Council Office or not, as a safe bar to future bickering—as a relief from the exercise of a difficult discretion—as a means of conciliating and comprehending all the sections of a parish—as a bond of effective combination in the deeply-needed work of extending elementary education. The grounds on which the clause is asked for do not, therefore, disprove those on which it was first offered.!

The case, however, to which I refer is that of Trinity Church District, Hoxton.

It is the case of a populous district of upper-working-class artisans and lower-middle-class tradespeople, mainly Dissenters, to one of whose denominations the chief local employers of labour belong. Yet it had remained without any day-schools whatever. A City missionary has the credit of stirring up the inhabitants to a sense of their responsibility. The matter was well advanced upon the appointment of the Rev. T. Fowle as curate in sole charge. The incumbent gave up, with the sanction of the bishop (to whom the plan had been referred), a portion of the glebe as a site for the intended school. The Dissenters' influence and support was conciliated by the proposal to adopt the Conscience Clause in the trust deed of the school, and not exclude them from all share in managing it. The first committee comprised one-third Dissenters. Yet Dissenters raised nearly half the funds, £500 being contributed twice over by the same Dissenting firm. And £200 was raised for the building from the small householders of the District, being Dissenters, a