The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-01 00:00:00

THE EDUCATION OFFICE AND TEE
CONSCIENCE CLAUSE.

The Rev. Charles Oravon, of Spenholl; near
Halaeworth, has received the following reply to a letter
which he recently addressed to the Education Committee
of the Privy Council :
" Education Department, Privy Council Office,
" Downing-street, S. W., Jam 29, 1864
" Rev. Sir,—lo reply to your letter, without date, but
received on the 23rd instant, Winds I have laid before the
Committee of Council, I am directed by my lords to
refer you to the conscience clause itself, which has bens
offered by their londships to the National Society for
*onside:aeon, and to the following separate propositions
which that clause contains, viz. The managers must
make such orders as will provide for the exemption of
children whose parents not being in communism with
the Church of England, desire it, trom attendees, at the
public worship' and from inatruction in the doctrine or
formularies of the said church. 2. Stich orders must not
otherwise (i.e., than by the exemption of the aforesaid
athirst') interfere with the religious teeing of the other
scholars. 3. Such orders must not authors* any. other
religious instruction (i.e., than that of the said church) to
be gives in the selooL
" Your statement that the letter ordered by the Om•
mitten of Council to be addressed to Mr. Caparu interprets
the omiscience clause as • permitting the reeding of the
Bible to be made an absolute ruts of Chinch schools as
long as the text of the Bible is not employed to enforce
the doctrine of the church of Engle/id' is incomplete;
you should have added words to the [Wholes effect
• Upon the children of parents not being in communion
with that church, and objecting to their children being
so taught.' After promising thus much, it will be easier
to answer your inquiry whether, if the diddles of ' Um-
reenlist', Ushuaia', Rationalists, and Nothingnriana'
(or the children of persons holding the opinions which
you say, rightly or wrongly, are denoted by those
prompted by their parents, ether put their
own version on such passage., in the presents of the
ether children, or refuse to read the Bible at all, alleging
liberty of conscience, are the managers and teachers to
be allowed to maintain and uphold the church's doctrine
in these several points, sad to insist upon the reading of
the Bible as a Decemary part of the school loatruotion 1
" The answer is that the terms of admisess have not to
be settled with the child in the school, but with its
parents before it enters the school. The managers, under
the clause, have quite as strictly defined draw to dis-
charge towards the other scholars as towards the excep-
tional oars. In a Church of England school they must
• maintain the Church's doctrine, and most insist upon the
reading of the Scriptures as a necessary part of the
instruction,' in the ass of all those children whose
parrots do not object; sod, in relieving these latter, they
must do so upon terms that are confined to relieving them,
and do not extend to the compromise or prejudice of that
full religious instruction to which the other children are
entitled.
"Their lordships reply might have ended here : it is no
part of their duty, under the conscience clamp, to pre-
write the details by which is each ours the maserra of
schools are to satisfy its provisions. The follows( ob-
servations are simply made in answer to your assumed plea
of impossibility ; they do not prescribe one worm of action,
nor exclude all ethers, towards the tams end. In 99
cams out of 100, the parent who resorts to the orionsieurse
clause at all will be a dissenter, whose scruples are
satisfied if his child be left free to go to 'ugh school
and place of worship on Sundays as the parent prefers ;
if his child be not compelled to declare what the spossore,
whom be never possessed, have done for him ; nor tel con-
tradict (in terms) some proposition of theology or church
government which (e. p.) baptists or Wesleyan' have • been
taught to regard as essential or distioctivs. it would seem
that, with a very little charity ant common sense on the past
of managers end teecheis, a child of this kind might satead
all the religion' lessees in schools intended for children, of
whom, on an average, nearly 69 out of every 100 are less
twin ten yeas of age, and not so essay ea LI out of every
100 are more than twelve years of age.—Report of Com-
mittee of Council on Education, 1864.5, p. 3. The extreme
eases that you pet are chiefly of fence ad invidiess ) so
little likely are they to wear among the poor is places
where there is only one school. As irreligious parent, also,
seldom wishes to have en irreligious child. But be this as
it may, the parent's religions professes, if it eau be moor-
taised, Is respected even in workhouses and pole ; and the
conscience clause does no more than old*, the managers
of schools pored for establishment by aid of the state is
places where one school, only is requited, to Sod some
moms of complying with the same principle. It would
be apes to say, if this principle could be complied
with by DO other mesas, to one of the parents whom
you describe—' Your child seed sot attend the Bible
or catechism leases. At the hours when those lemons
are gives, it meat [stay sway from school, or be
employed at too and so, ea the manager. may deride).
i While it sio the school, it must be subject to the same
discipline ea every other child. If you wish your child to
Weed the Mile end rainslinei lamas% they will sot in
the slightest dere* be modified oe amount of Ste presence •
it must do nothing to interrupt or dimandit them • and fa;
Mantel that eau be offered to you is, that four Child will
net be required to join natively in them at in sect sad
such parts of them, as the cue Tull esquire '—l haver ha.,
Mina/ "R. IL W. Loam"

OITITAL PALLCI. -- ONZ 81111 LING DA v.•.*
WIDNIIIDAT, Jaz. 3L—Aeassiosi es pram% WS
alio by nom iiiiiille, 1,038 ;$e fluor% 2,744.

LIFEBOAT SERVICES.—During the storms of
the peat year the National Lifeboat Inatitudon, by its life-
boat and other means, contributed to the saving of TOT persons
from different wrecks on our oeasta. The institution also ex-
pended £21,374 In the same period on its lifeboat establishment..
inaddition to granting £4,960 for rewards for saving life and
exercialag the lifeboats.
The committee of the Institution earnestly APPEAL to the
public for ABSISTANCK, to enable them to meet the continued
heavy demands on the institution's 153 Lifeboat Stations.
Contributions are received b the London an. Country
Bankers : and by the Secretary Lewis, Esq., at the In-
stigation, 14, John-street, Adenoid, London.
jrOIIN BROGDZN.

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LYCZIIIL

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ußlTAxxy_

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LONDON. THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 1.

"Ir throughout the whole range of material
" interest, that affect the well-being of a com-
" munity there be any one subject of greater
el importance than another, without doubt that
" subject is the adequate supply of food for the
" people ; and yet this is a subject which in our
" country has never hitherto been considered to
"any useful or practical end. What should we
" think of a General who should make no inquir;es
" into the means that existed for the daily feed-
" ing of the army committed to his charge f Ard
" yet we supinely acquiesce in the apathy which
" has allowed the English Government to remain
" in ignorance of those means, with reference to
" the sustenance of those millions of which the
" nation is composed. Nay, more ; we have
" allowed jealousies, prejudices, and the nude-
" finable apprehensions of ignorance, to oppose
" every attempt at inquiry in this direction."

Thus wrote the eminent author of the " Pro-
" greas of the Nation," twenty-six years ago, and
his words have not lost one jot of their applicabi-
lity to the present day. In 1860 the late Pam'
CoNsonr cried shame upon us, in the presence of
the most distinguished statists of Europe, then
congregated in London, for our ladles in this
respect. And Lord STANLEY, speaking last
autumn at Birmingham, during the session of the
very Association to whom a quarter of a century
before Mr. Portrait addressed the sentences we
have quoted above, lamented that the work re-
commended by that emiaent man still remained
undone. Unfortunately, to show the reasonable-
ness and necessity of a measure is not enough to
secure its success. When, after long years of ger-
mination, an idea becomes firmly established in the
public mind, there is yet a most formidable ob-
stacle to be overcome before that idea can be put
into practice. It is the vis inertia of the govern-
ment machine, whose wheels creak and groan in
ind'snant protestation against the impelling power
which so rudely disturbs its corgenial inactivity.
Thus has it been with agricultural statistics. At
first met with defiant hos,:li4 by the Tory squires
who claimed to represent in Parliament the inter-
ests of the farmers of England ; then opposed on
argumentative grounds, or what pained for su:h ;
then tardily acquiesced in and " damned with
" faint praise ;" until at length the point was
reached at which, thanks to the persistent energy
of Mr. CAIRN who of late years has stood to this
subject in loco parentis, the Government, with the
asset grace it could assume, announced that some-
thing should be done.
In March of last year Mr. Crum inquired ;n
the House what step. were to be taken to carry
Into effect the resolution of Parliament with re-
gard to the collection of agricultural statistics ;
to which question Mr. MILNER GIBBON re-
plied that a sum of money for that purpose
would be asked for during the session,
and on the 12thof June the House vo:ed 10,0001.
to be applied in obtaining the necessary informa-
tion. Before the end of that month of June
the disease which has now attained to such •
magnitude made its first appearance in London,
and in • short time gave proof of its malignity
in the ravages it committed ; one cowkeeper, in
Islington, alone losing more than one hundred cows.
On the 29th September, a royal commission was
issued for an investigation of the origin and na-
ture of the " contagious or infectious disorder
" now prevailing among the cattle of Great
" Britain." Still the Government made no sign
with regard to a most important element in the in-
quiry opened by the Commission.

The Commissioners, with praiseworthy diligence,
opened the examination of witnesses on the 2nd of
October, and on the 24th of that month their
Secretary wrote to Mr. Mrtzerx Grusorr, represent-
ing " the importance of obtairing correct infer.
" motion respecting the number of horned cattle
" and sheep in the country." " Such returns,"
the Secretary adds, "if they were in existence,
" would be valuable on the present occasion." The
reply from the Board of Trade is a curiosity in the
way even of offici►l correspondence. " The repro-
" sentation of the Commissioners has received the
" prompt (the reply bears date 3rd November) and
" anxious consideration of 'my Lords,' and they
" concur with them as to the importance,"
"If such information were obtained it could
•' not fail to be of great utility and interest at
"the present time to the agriculturists, as well as
"to the public at large. It appears that this
" country is almost exceptional in not possessing
" returns of the number of its cattle. Unfortunately
" it is for the chief division of the United Kingdom

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