in non-essentials liberty

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I saw this quote on our local church newpaper: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity" and was struck that this is something I had been thinking about earlier that week, the middle part of the quote anyway: in non-essentials liberty. I am in full agreement with it. If something is a non-essential, then we should all be at liberty to do as we choose with regard to it. Hopefully that doesn't sound too confusing or too vague. Maybe an example will help. I was trying to explain to a friend that I felt a school we were discussing, should not make it a compulsory part of the curriculum for the students to participate in swimming lessons. Indeed it probably makes good sense that it is, and I am sure most parents appreciate that it is, given the high tuition fees! However that should not detract from the issue that swimming lessons can be considered a non-essential to some and therefore parents should be at liberty to choose whether their child should or should not participate in that activity. I therefore held the view that the school was wrong to make it compulsory instead of optional. If it were something like mathematics, now, I can see why it should be a compulsory part of the curriculum, but swimming, ...well, I don't see it as an essential (not in the strictest sense), therefore I think it should have been made optional to give freedom to parents who may want to coach their own kids on their own time and in their own way, if they choose, or maybe they will just choose to let their kids learn at another time or another place, or not at all. I am not saying that either of these is necessarily better than the option at school, but that the parent should be free to choose. Liberty!! :)