Page:The Conscience Clause in 1866.djvu/23

19 "5495. Then the general effect is, that where there are a great number of Dissenters, the principle of the Conscience Clause is acted upon by the clergy, but that where they are few and weak, it is not so generally acted upon?—I cannot tell you that it is where they are few and weak that it is not acted upon. For instance, I will give you the case of a town in my own neighbourhood. The school has existed for the last twenty years; I was active in its erection. The Catechism is taught there to all the children, unless there are objections made to it. These objections are very rare, if any. I believe that there may have been a very few made to it. The deed is a Church deed, and there is no Conscience Clause in it. In that town there are seven Dissenting chapels. There was a British school when the Church school was established; but there is no British school now; the school building, I believe, has been sold. There is a Church school. The Dissenters are wealthy, and have abundant means, if they thought it right or convenient, or if they desired, to provide a British school, but they do not do it, and the children, so far as they obtain education, are educated at those Church schools. "

Sir Thomas Phillips, in answer (5497, 8) desires "most strongly to bring before the Committee his belief that no practical grievance is felt by Dissenting parents with the conduct of Church schools. Those who proclaim the grievance say that a Conscience Clause would be no remedy for that grievance. It is another state of things they ask the state to establish, viz. a school in which all religious opinions shall be represented in the school and upon the Committee of Management."

"You ask me whether no grievance exists with respect to Church schools in the exclusion of Dissenters from the management of the school?" My own opinion decidedly is that, "if there be anything in which you want quiet tranquillity, harmonious co-operation, and all absence of bickering, it is a school: and it would be impossible in my judgment (with the strong elements of contrariety which prevail in religious questions) to establish that state of things if you once admitted the members of various religious bodies to the government of a single school."

In corroboration of this opinion of Sir Thomas Phillips, I