Catholic Problems in Western Canada

-A National Reason-A British Reason-A Historical

ewan and Alberta, are partially recognized by law, there are yet some who seem to have a mission to reopen the conflict by ever dragging the problem into the open arena of our political life. Under the specious pretext of national welfare they would foist upon the Canadian Public opinions and measures opposed to our existing system and to the broad spirit of liberty that inspires and mainta

e Pagan ideal. The pagan ideal of civilization is the absorption of the individual

s to God." Before the ever recrudescent forces of neo-paganisim it is most useful, we contend, to reassert in plain, terse language the principles, the reasons t

rs in the pacific penetration of ideas and in their conquering power. In truth alone, the Master stated, is true and abiding liberty: "You will know truth, and truth will mak

Moral

free to give to his life its moral direction, so also does the same principle apply to the education of a child for whose conscience, as for whose life, the parent is responsible. The moral right of the parent, which is one with that of the child in that period of life, is fundamental. It constitutes the bed-rock on which rest all other rights in matters of education. To deny that principle, to deflect it fro

Social

it. The other social factors presuppose it and exist for its protection. Is it not the source from which springs the very life of the individual and wherein society replenishes its forces? The placing of the individua

violence to it." What Treitsche said of the Judiciary Power in a country may well be applied to education. "We find the first and fundamental principle of jurisprudence to be that no one should be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of his natural judge." The natural school of the child is the family; the common school should be nothing but an extension of the home. The mission of the school is to supplement the hom

rough which any Government may force its particular views on the growing generation. The monopoly of State education is nothing else but the conscription of the minds, an "intellectual militarism," which eventually leads to the absorption of the individual and the fa

Politic

cial axis and throws a nation out of its natural orbit. Political Society then oscillates between autocracy and anarchy. The infringement of this supreme law of moral gravitation has strewn the paths of history with the ruins of kingdoms and empires.

r is that liberty is previous to authority, for authority only exists to protect liberty against tyranny and to safeguard it against its own excesses. He is best governed who is least governed. LePlay, the celebrated French

eover claim not only the negative protection or non-interference of authority, but also its positive financial help. For political liberty exists for the protection of civil liberty, and not vic

days. The passing and pressing emergencies of the great war have accentuated these tendencies. The nations have kept the habit of being governed by orders-in-council, by arbitrary censorship and dictatorial methods. "The Executive has usurped the functions that

tates of his conscience. As education is nothing but a preparation for life, its theory goes hand in hand with the theory of life. To this liberty of the parent should correspond in society a political right. To deprive a free citi

dangerous of all tyrannies because it allows no appeal against itself." This autocracy of numbers is often more dangerous and more brutal than that of a caste, of a czar, or of a king. Russia is giving us an illustration of this autocracy of number. Did not Germany use the same argument to crush Belgium and to try to dominate th

alue of this plea for uniformity. It would open a very interesting pedagogical debate and we are inclined to believe that the "anti-uniformists" would carry away the honors. We do not pretend that the State has no rights in matters of ed

ational

s liberties, the shield of the individual against the possible tyranny of government, the effective check upon the ambition of every government to extend the sphe

tion of its framers-is always eventually fatal to the peace and welfare of the nation. No one lays hands with impunity on that Ark of the Covenant. The essential changes in the Constitution of a country act as a time-fuse. An explosion necessarily follows, although it may take years and gen

merica. Act. Even where the letter of the Provincial Law has established the "public school,"-as is the case in the Maritime Provinces-the

erties-stipulates, section 93, that in the carving out of new Provinces in the vast domains of the North West Territories the existing educational rights guaranteed to the minority

n 17 of the Autonomy Bills of 1905, the section 93 of the B.N.A. Act, and by reasserting the existing rights granted by the N.W.T. School Ordinances of 1901. We say "par

t it! the separate school system in Canada is "protestant" in its origin. It was to protect the protestant minority of Lower Canada that this system, Catholic in Ontario, Protestant in Quebec, was adopted on September 18th, 1841. In the West the minority school-law w

and bring all Canadian children under one system. No genuine "Canadianization" is possible without this unity of education. The advocates of these ideas are now at work promoting through the country the "nationalization of schools." The Conference of Winnipeg, 1919, was the first tangible result of this moveme

on, as a source of efficiency, is one of the fallacies of our materialistic age. Schools to be successful have not to be submitted to the same laws of a commercial or industrial combine. Ethnical and moral values do not follow the laws of the mart and the stock exchange. If in our extensive Dominion even a unity of tarif

sible excesses of the centripetal forces of the Federal Government. Any movement that tends to break the harmony of these forces is, we claim, anti-Canadian. The Premier of Quebec speaking to the Deputy Ministers of Education and Superintendents of Public Instruction, at an inter-provincial Conference sounded this note of warning: "The absolute control by each Province of its educational system is the keystone of our Confederation; and the whole structure of Canada would crumble away if any attempt were made at suppressing that which holds its several parts together." (Nov. 4, 1921.) Quebec is blamed for being the great obstacle to th

S.J., ignorant of our real history or its true meaning, is fast becoming a menace to t

ideal is the answer. We all know what that means and where it leads. Its principles are the solvents of what remains of Christianity-unconscious to many, it is

ritish

f the average Westerner. The West is in its making and has no past behind it. This fact alone can explain how easy the Western mind is open to influences opposed to the spirit of our Canadian institutions. It has no traditions, and traditions are the hidden roots that plunge down i

in its Colonial policy. (We underline "colonial policy" for, we cannot say the same of England's policy with Ireland-) We would quote here what a well known Western pub

lan. If the British Empire is the glorious Empire it is to-day is it not because of the fact that long ago the British statesman and the British citizen have learned the lesson of tolerance? To-day, Great Britain with its forty-five millions of people rules over hundreds of millions of people of diverse nationalities and religious faiths, and throughout the whole scheme of government and constitution runs the idea of reasonable and just tolerance and compromise. Were this not so the British Empire would quickly fall to pieces. Why then should we not

the only principle that will keep it on the map of th

chools of several cities into its system, is it not painful, to say the least, to hear our ultra-loyalists ever up in arms against our separate schools? To them we feel lik

istoric

as they present themselves to the observer. This is more noticeable in the educational field. This frame of mi

nceptions in every field of affairs." ("Century," Sept., 1920.) The theory of evolution has such a grasp on the modern mind that its concepts of government, of economics, of education are looked upon as the las

has not varied very much with centuries. Those therefore who look upon our modern Educational system as the apex, the summing up of all past phases, are greatly mistaken. "The lessons of past history," writes Dr. Walsh, "are extremely preci

more instruction but, at times, we doubt if they are better educated. Results are the best judges of educational values. History and experience prove that success in education depends more on the sense of responsibility in the parents and of duty in the children, than on palatial school-houses and elaborate programme of st

ind illuminating points of comparison and instructive conclusions. We would advise them to take Dr. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.,

inister of Education, Benedetto Croce, in a speech on the "reorganization of education," stated publicly that the neutral school was theoretically absurd and practically impossible. In Spain,[3] by a Bill of May, 1919, the State universities have passed out of the hands of the Government. France, Portugal, Argentine Republic are fighti

Religio

r, has made the "separate school" an absolute necessity. If religion has a

this essential feature falls short of its full meaning. With this principle in view any fair-minded man will understand how true Christian parents demand a school where their children will receive religious education. They are in conscience bound to exact for their offspring such education, and, where the State refuses them

nished at the bitterness that characterizes at times the conflict. Are not religious and racial issues so intimately united with the very conc

ossibility. Is it because other denominations cannot agree as to their religious tenets that we, who count over one-third of the total population and who stan

school. This neutrality we claim, is erroneous in theory and impossible in practice. The theory of th

n, the training of the will, the moulding of the heart, the grounding of the intellect in clear notions of right and wrong, obligation and duty, should not be left to haphazard or squeezed as an afterthought into an hour on Sunday. The moral and spiritual growth o

of history be neutral? The Catholic Church and the Reformation are historical facts: how are they to be judged? How are ethics to be treated, without reference to God,

ents have a right to see that it should be so. Is this possible in a neutral school? Its very negative character impregnates the class-rooms with an irreligious feeling which the impressionable mind of the child cannot but notice. How is the child to grow up with the feeling of Religion's importance in life if the ban is placed upon Religion the moment he passes the threshold of the school-room? "What we most dread," said Bishop McQuaid, "is not the dire

skatchewan conducted by Dr. Foght, in 1918, revealed there a state of things which in our mind is an eye-opener in the matter under examination. Out of over 4,000 scho

gious instruction and atmosphere in the school. The alarming increase of religious indifference, the rising tide of anarchy, the univ

d the moral influence to be crowded out. When I say moral, I mean morality based upon religion. We cannot build a system of morality on any other than a religious basis. We have gone too far in allowing religion to be eliminated from our schools. I would not have religion taught by public school teachers, but

ct of religious training of childhood and youth in the schools. This deficiency in religious education on the part of the Evangelical sects is called by the authors of the report "Protestanti

n the part of any civil authority at the present day to spurn and reject the educational assista

r every serious-minded Canadian an agonizing problem. How many attempts have been made to solve

riting is on the wall of every country where the experiment has been made and t

*

nswer to the ever renascent objection of those who are not of our opinion. That right rests on the solid rock of Ju

e North West Review of Winnipeg. The following edi

the last of the series

ing with the separa

lic home in Western Canada, because the subject is one likely to be controversial for an indefinite period. Sometimes one finds Catholics who are not as well acquainted with the fact as they should be that the question of Catholic education c

he pretext of Canadianization, under the "invisible head" of this country. Or as in th

be well for the average Catholic to be in a position to give a good a

ge Trust socialisms where the individual will hunger no more for freedom because of his having never tasted it. The one great desideratum to this end is the abso

e ruin that they court by relinquishing to a material p

iness. The result is selfishness, jingoism, narrow nationalism-an unthinking, a gulli

outh the truths of religious education can readily

morality and justice. Surely then Catholics should study in a particular way the only

ca, Aug.

Vaughan, S.J., on this subj