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may not teach the Apostles' Creed, is, I apprehend, not to be distinguished from the secular system, even by the versatile ingenuity of the Council Office. It is in this as in other things; the pupils have got beyond the tutor. Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, the parent of the Committee of Council on "Education," did not get farther than the comprehensive system; whether he guts farther than it now, I do not know. It is difficult to suppose that a man so intelligent and able should not have perceived that the one system necessarily issues in the other. However this may be, his pupils, the chief of whom is that eminent adversary of the Church of England, Mr Lingen, have found no difficulty in making the two systems exactly coincide. As respects the saving of money for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "Conscience Clause" has answered very well. The building grant fell off to the extent of £60,349 15s. 11d. in 1862-3, principally because Church people will not have a building grant coupled with a "Conscience Clause." I believe there has been a like falling off in 1864-5.
Now men can get over the "Revised Code"—though it was not altogether a very clean proceeding—because, first, there was a good deal to be said for it, and second, because it infringed no religious principle, and did violence to no conscience.
But they cannot get over "Conscience Clause," because it does infringe a religious principle, interferes with the teaching of the Church, and does not respect the consciences of managers of Church schools. This last is, I suppose, the reason why it is called the "Conscience Clause," as I have said above.
Now how did the Committee of Council set about it? They introduced—for the first time (for there is no trace of it from 1839 to 1858)—the practice of asking what were the relative numbers of Church and Dissenting families in a place; then they set down all doubtful cases, all families difficult to class, to the credit of the Sects, and made the answer to the application accordingly. But, if we look at the form of questions A and B,
