Page:The "Conscience Clause" (Denison, 1866).djvu/30

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particle of interference with her teaching. Better, ten thousand times, to have no Education Grant at all than an "Education" Grant with a "Conscience Clause."

I ask next, were the principles of administration above specified recognised as just, and, as such, made the basis of mutual agreement in 1839—40, and again in 1847—52, by the Church on the one part, and the Committee of Council on the other?

First then, what says vol. i of Minutes?

It lays down the legally-secured site, and the right of inspection, as the conditions required by the Civil Power. It condemns all interference with teaching on the part of the Civil Power. I should only be abusing the patience of the House, which I am obliged to tax heavily as it is, to cite passages. Most people who care about this question know something of this book; if they don't, they had better get it, and get it up. I will cite one passage only out of "Instructions to Inspectors," p. 28.

"He will abstain from any interference with the instruction, management, or discipline of the school, and will on all occasions carefully avoid any act which could tend to impair the authority of [the school committee or chief promoters of the school] over the teacher or over the children, or of the teacher himself over his scholars."

A fortiori, then, there could be no power of interference by Trust Deed, and, as matter of fact, so it was. The condition of a Management Clause was, as the House knows, added subsequently by mutual agreement; but there is no interference with teaching under the Management Clauses.

Secondly, what says the great originator of the Committee of Council, Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, touching this very point of compulsory admission of the children of the Sects into a Parish School. In a correspondence between Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, then Secretary of the Committee of Council, and myself, in 1847, the following words occur in one of Sir James's letters:—

"The conditions of their Lordships' grants are contained in their