Page:The Conscience Clause in 1866.djvu/21

17 the clergy could not concur in the establishment of British and Foreign schools, the teaching of which they could not accept as being really religious teaching. (4946.) The character of the religious teaching in the British schools is very defective. The results of the Monmouthshire prize scheme for 1861—5 shows that 40 per cent, of the children in Church schools obtained prizes against 12 per cent, of the children in British schools, and that each prize in a Church school was worth 15 marks, and each prize in a British school 11: the result indicating, as the value of the religious teaching, 100 in Church schools relatively to 22 in British schools. (App. 4.)

The Rev., Rector of Gelligaerin Glamorganshire, a parish of 6,000 souls, has been fifteen years interested in the education of the poor. In his parish school, (5305,) the children's attendance at Church or at the Sunday School is voluntary, the Catechism is taught, but in the case of any unbaptized child the first three questions are taught generally thus: "What are children made in their baptism? What are the promises which godfathers and godmothers make?" No objection has been raised by Dissenters or others to the teaching of the schools. (5313.) The objections to the Conscience Clause in Wales are very general, almost universal. (5358.) "The endeavour to enforce the Conscience Clause is retarding and will continue to retard the establishment of schools. The only solution of the difficulty is that the Clause should never "be insisted on." (5414.)

Sir Thomas Phillips has been ten years a member of the committee of the National Society; he originated the Welsh Education Fund in 1846, has been the promoter and manager of important schools in Wales, and is personally conversant with the progress and state of education in the Principality. It is to be regretted that Sir Thomas Phillips was not the first instead of being nearly the last witness examined. His testimony to the school management required by the rules of the National Society would have saved much time to both questioners and witnesses. Sir Thomas Phillips declares that the terms of union with the National Society do not require the Catechism to be taught to all the children in a school—do not require the attendance of all the children at Church or Sunday School—do not