Page:The Conscience Clause (Oakley, 1866).djvu/80

68 a sound religious instruction according to the doctrines and principles of the Church of England." (Applause.) "Whatever else may be necessary, unnecessary, or superfluous for each of the different ranks into which these schools are divided, there is, at all events, this one subject, which is of equal importance to the high, to the middle, and to the low, and which it is the boast and the honour of this institution to have, from its first foundation, incorporated with, and made an essential part of, the instruction to be given to all those who come within its walls. From the first foundation of this institution it has not only been decided that the education given to all the pupils should be of a strictly religious character, but also that it should be in close connection with the service, discipline, and doctrine of the Church of England. How, then, it may be asked, can this system of religious education work for the benefit of the middle classes in general in a community which comprises among its members a very considerable number of Protestant Dissenters? I think the solution has been found by acting upon a very simple principle, and demonstrating that, where this principle is fairly and honourably carried out, there is less difficulty—at all events, with regard to the point of religious education—with Protestants of different denominations than is usually supposed to exist. It has been determined in this college to introduce that which, with regard to the Government schools, is known as the 'Conscience Clause'—that is, while we require that the services of the Church of England should be exclusively made use of, that every boy should attend those services, that the teaching should be in conformity with the doctrines of the Church of England, and that the teachers, with the exception of those of foreign languages, should be members of the Church of England, it has also been decided, and I think with a judicious and wise toleration, that those boys whose parents object to