Page:The Conscience Clause in 1866.djvu/24

20 interpolate an incident comprised in the examination of the Rev. J. B. Binns.

"4298. Do you know any cases of a mixed committee of management, composed of Churchmen and Dissenters?—Very few; and of those one or two cases which I do know, one in particular has not worked well; that is in North Wales. 4299. In what way has it not worked well?—The clergyman was anxious to establish his school on the most liberal possible basis, and therefore he agreed to allow a mixed coramittee of Dissenters and Churchmen to have the management of the school. When I came there, the first time the school was inspected, I found the whole of the committee assembled, and immediately an argument was commenced, and a dispute arose about the very title of the school on Form 9 of the Government Forms, which was required to be filled up by the managers in the corner, at the top of the first page of that form. It was proposed that it should be called a Church of England school, and one member of the committee immediately rose and said, 'I object to that title in the case of this school,' and they would not settle the difference between them; and the clergyman at last came forward and said, 'Well, I propose one of two things; either that we Church people shall withdraw from the school on condition of your paying back what we have contributed, or we will pay back to you what you have subscribed, and you shall let us have the management of the school.'"

Sir Thomas Phillips reminds the Committee (5475—9) that the Wesleyau School Committee have declared that their community will never consent that the teaching of religion in their schools shall be subject to restriction.

Effectively there is no Conscience Clause in the deeds of Wesleyan Schools, and Sir Thomas Phillips remarks, (5479,) "This shows that the indisposition to dispense with religious teaching is not peculiar to the Church, but that the inconvenience would be felt, and is protested against by another very distinguished and important religious community." Sir Thomas Phillips might have strengthened his argument by mentioning that the Roman Catholic schools are also free from the anomalous vexation of a Conscience Clause.