Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/78

66 though it can never "otherwise interfere with the religious instruction as fixed by these presents" in every trust deed. There is no time to do more than name, but I must name in this connection an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes (November 15, 1865), giving an account of the astonishing system of education now at work in America—that system which has produced still more astonishing results, which has carried the great Republic through its tremendous struggle by the mere force of the intelligence and the conscience of her whole people, and which leaves the chief apprehension of her statesmen (and a serious apprehension it is) to be the danger arising from the ignorance imported from Europe, and especially from Ireland. I do not, I repeat, advocate that system as a whole. But it is certain that its strength consists in the absence of the religious difficulty which besets us—in the absence of any necessity for a Conscience Clause. For I think it is plain that three principles, to neither of which I commit myself, but which I will name {horresco referens), do stand very much in the relation of cause to the effect of general enlightenment and moral elevation which we must all admire—namely, that the instruction in American elementary day-schools is "secular, compulsory, and free (gratis).

If we can produce this effect by other or by less extreme forms of the same means, well and good! Some of it I believe we can so produce. But let us at least admit fully our desperate need of that effect, and welcome anything that tends to produce it or remove obstacles to its production.

4. Fourthly, I point to the progress of public opinion, and its unmistakeable tendency in this direction. I do not insist on the undoubted fact that the mind of the House of Commons is such as Lord Granville has said that he believes it to be—such as to make the Committee of Council, out of regard for the Church of England, and a desire to come to terms with her, hesitate to submit the question to the House, and so draw on the rough