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There is a further point about which it is important to speak plainly. If denominational schools of all kinds were present everywhere, no doubt every such school might be absolutely confined to children of its own denomination. But in point of fact it happens every day that children of one form of faith are, through pressure of necessity of one kind or another, practically compelled to attend a school whose principles their parents do not approve. And there is a great number of parishes in which there is, and can be, only one school, although there may be many denominations. In such cases it is most important, for denominational principle, that provision should be made for the full maintenance of denominational liberty. And therefore it is matter of the most profound regret to many Churchmen that the Bill was introduced without an express enactment of the principle that, in any or every primary school in the land, parents might lawfully provide religious instruction for their own children in accordance with their own faith. It is important, for that equity toward Dissenters which is essential to liberal principles, that this liberty should be secured wherever there is one school only, and that one school is Anglican. It is no less important, for that equity towards Churchmen which is essential to liberal principles, that the same liberty should be secured, wherever there is one school only, and that one school is Dissenting or is "undenominational."
There would, of course, be difficulty of all sorts in detail. You cannot suddenly equalize conditions everywhere, especially when the inequalities which exist are largely the outcome of a long and serious history. But it is the principle which matters—the principle of perfect religious fairness. Once get the principle true, and just, and illuminating; and much can be done, after all, in the way of making the best of difficulties in detail. Such a provision was an essential feature in the scheme that commended
