Page:The conscience clause (Bickersteth, 1867).djvu/14

 infinitesimal, we can nevertheless hardly with safety apply to it the legal maxim, "De minimis non curat lex." The Dissenter's case is this. He lives in a parish which cannot support a Dissenting School. The National School is well conducted and efficient. But it is a rule of the School that the full teaching of the Church shall be given to every child without exception; and so the doors of the School are closed to him, because he must either have the education with the whole of the Church Catechism, or none, although the school is in part supported out of the public funds.

I have endeavoured, my Lord Duke, to put the question fairly on both sides; and I have thus reached the difficulty, the solution of which has been sought for in a "Conscience Clause."

The principle of the "Conscience Clause" is this, that in the case of Parishes such as I have described, (for I am not aware that it is pressed in other cases,) it shall be a condition of receiving a Building Grant that the promoters shall insert a clause in the Trust Deed, which provides that no child shall receive religious instruction contrary to the declared wishes of its parent.

Now, at first sight, this would seem a fair and simple solution. It has often been urged that this is nothing more than the embodiment of the principle upon which nine-tenths of the Clergy act in the administration of their Schools; and why