The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-02 00:00:00

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shall cause every young child who shall receive such
religious instruction to attend Divine worship, under the
care of the master, at such church or chapel, or such Sunday
school, as may be approved by the clerical trustee, and
wherein adequate acommodation for children has been pro-
vided." The house would at once perceive what was the
effect of that alteration. The schools under the act would
on Sundays be open, and the master would attend on the
children of all such parents as might require them to •be pre-
sent at religious instruction, given in the Catechism and
Church doctrine. But lie stated on a former occasion, that
he recognised distinctly as a principle, that until the child
was emancipated the parent or guardian was the person hav-
ing legal custody of the child. and had a right to exercise a
control over its religious education and instruction. In
strict conformity with that principle, the clause, as he now
proposed it,• would allow members of the Church of England,
whose children attended schools on week days to go if they
chose to any other Sunday school, and they would have per-
fect power and liberty to do so, and not to go to the school
under this act. (Rear.) If he had succeeded in stating to
the house the alterations he proposed with respect to that
clause, he'did hope and believe that every objection urged by
petitioners, in or out of doors, with respect to Sunday schools,
would be entirely done away with. lie would now proceed
to the second point which related to certificates granted by
day schools, and on that point he would state to the house
that he proposed to introduce alterations in clauses 16, 17, 18 ;
and to omit entirely from the bill clauses 71, 72, 73, and 74.
He proposed to introduce -a new provision which would en-
able all schools, without exception to grant certificates for
attendance, subject only to this condition—that all schools
granting certificates shall come under the cognisance of the
inspector to be appointed by the committee of the Privy
Council, and he should insist further, that in any school
where Protestant children attended no religious instruction
should be given unless the authorised version of the Scrip-
tures were used ; that it was intended to provide for the case
of Protestants attending factory schools, and to prevent the
master exercisi"' env power lie might possess to compel the
attendar es of Protestant children at factory schools, and
there ins,rucc tue CiiilUfell in everything but the authorised
version of the scriptures. The books used in schools would
be approved of by the bishop of the diocese. In future it
will be sufficient for the parent to say that he objected to the
mode of education, taking every precaution to make the
measure as little objectionable as possible. It would be at
the pleasure of Dissenting parents to have their children
educated on Sunday in any school which they might prefer ;
they would not be bound to any particular form, but have
the children educated as they thought best. It was well
known that Roman Catholics bad Conscientious objections
to the authorised copies of the Bible. He, however, pro-
posed that schools should be opened with the reading of
passages of Scripture, and saying of the Lord's Prayer by the
children ; and he did not believe Dissenters would object to
that regulation. The school would 'also close with reading
:the Scriptures and the Lord's prayer. This might be objec-
tionable to some Roman Catholics, he should therefore frame
a special enactment to exempt the children of Catholics from
being present at the opening of the schools.