national, and non-sectarian. Regulation 21 of the Board of Education provides that: It shall be the privilege of every teacher to open and close the daily exercises of the school by reading a portion of Scripture (out of the common or Douay version, as he may prefer), and by offering the Lord's Prayer. Any other prayer may be used by permission of the Board of Trustees. But no teacher shall compel any pupil to be present at these exercises against the wish of his parent or guardian expressed in writing to the Board of Trustees. The national non-sectarian system has been in existence in New Brunswick for more than twenty years, and there is not the slightest probability that it will be interferred with.

NOVA SCOTIA.

Sectarian public schools are unknown in Nova Scotia. George Iles, of New York, in an article on "The Separate School System of Canada," in "Education," a Boston publication, in June, 1890, said: "In Nova Scotia one-fourth of the inhabitants are Catholics; public sentiment has always sternly opposed a separate school system, and the Church of Rome has never seriously thrown herself into the attempt to plant it there."

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

Referring to the improvement of the national school law in New Brunswick, the late Archbishop Tache, in a pamphlet on the schoo question published in 1877, wrote, "all these hardships imposed upon the Catholics of New Brunswick are said by some to be nothing but 'fair play,' 'equal rights,' etc., so the good people of Prince Edward Island thought they could do no better than follow such examples. Out of a population of 94,021, Catholics number 40,442. The Non-Catholics took advantage of the small difference in numbers, the whole Island was agitated on the school question, fanaticism was aroused, war declared against Catholic schools, and as one and one-third are more than one the 'nonsectarian system' prevailed." Another way of putting this would be by saying that the people of Prince Edward Island were determined to secure national schools, and succeeded in realizing their wish.

BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Like the provinces in the east the province in the extreme west is favored with national unsectarian schools. Section 62 of

Chapter 40 of the "Public School Act, 1891," provides as follows: "All Public Schools established under the provisions of this Act shall be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles. The highest morality shall be inculcated but no religious dogma nor creed shall be taught. The Lord's Prayer may be used in opening or closing the school."

To ask Manitoba to go back to separate schools is to demand a return to a system which is rapidly being driven out of Roman Catholic as well as out of Protestant countries all over the world. It is to insist that one of the newest and most progressive countries in modern times, shall put on the discredited and cast off garments of Mexico and Central America. A more startling attempt to enforce retrogression upon one of the most, perhaps the most, progressive of communities in existence to-day could not be imagined.

CHAPTER X.

THE FOUR ARGUMENTS FOR A RETURN TO THE OLD SYSTEM. No. 1. THE CONSCIENCE ARGUMENT.

In the foregoing pages I have endeavored to bring together some of the facts an intimate acquaintance with which is necessary to an intelligent understanding of the Manitoba School question. But I have by no means sought to exhaust the evidence which goes to discredit the separate school as an institution. Should a commission be appointed,—the course suggested by the Provincial Government and approved of in so many influential quarters--I have no doubt but that it will be an easy task for the Provincial authorities to convince the people of Canada that when they attacked the separate school system in Manitoba they sought to rid the country of a malignant evil.

THE FOUR ARGUMENTS.

It is next in order to examine into the reasons given why this Province should be coerced into submitting herself to the degrading thraldom from which she has for the time being at least, escaped. They are as follows:

I. The Roman Catholic is entitled to separate schools as a matter of conscientious conviction.

2. The Roman Catholic is entitled to separate schools by treaty.

3. He is entitled to separate schools by law.

4. If he is not absolutely entitled to separate schools as a matter of conscience, treaty, or law, we must give them to him because he demands them. This is Dr. Grant's "gospel of despair."

The above seem to be the only reasons given. No one seeks seriously to defend the separate schools of Manitoba on their merits.

In examining the arguments thus assigned in favor of separate schools, it will be convenient to take them in the order just given, that is first the argument based broadly on conscientious conviction, next that based on the treaty idea, thirdly, the legal argument, and lastly Dr. Grant's "gospel of despair."

A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE.

The Roman Catholic cit zen states that his conscience requires

him to insist upon doctrinal teaching in the public schools, and inveighs loudly against any interference with what he calls his liberty of conscience. His objection is not that under a national school training his child will be taught anything offensive, but that too little attention will be given to his religious education in the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. His persecution consists in this that he is not allowed to engraft sectarian instruction upon the public school system. He blames the law not because it requires him to do something that clashes with his conscience, but because it will not do all that his so-called convictions require. This claim is not a question of conscience but a question of special privilege. If this is religious persecution the definition of the offence universally accepted will require very radical revision.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSCIENCE-WHAT IS IT?

When the Roman Catholic loudly declaims against his conscientious convictions being interferred with, he cannot object to stating what religious convictions his church allows him as an inIdividual to entertain. In "The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance," the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, without "citing any of the fearfully energetic epithets in which the condemnations are sometimes clothed," mentions a few of the propositions, "the holders of which have been condemned by the See of Rome during" the twelve or fifteen years previous to 1874. The following have been condemned :

1. Those who maintain the liberty of the press. Encyclical Letter of Pope Gregory XVI, in 1831; and of Pope Pius IX, in 1864.

2. Or the LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE or of Worship. Encyclical of Pius IX, December 8, 1864.

3. Or the liberty of speech. "Syllabus" of March 18, 1861, Prop. lxx x. Encyclical of Pope Pius IX, December 8, 1864.

4. Or that in conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail. "Syllabus," Prop. xlii.

5. Or that any method of instruction of youth, solely secular, may be approved. Ibid, Prop. xlviii.

6. Or that any other religion than the Roman Catholic Religion may be established by a state. Ibid, Prop. lxxvii.

7. Or that in "countries called Catholic" the free exercise of other religions may laudably be allowed. Ibid, Prop. lxxviii.

The above are but seven instances out of eighteen given by Mr. Gladstone, whose list is but a partial one. In the face of these facts the claim of the Roman Catholic to liberty of conscience as an individual seems based upon little or no foundation. The Church in whose name he so loudly demands liberty of conscience has strongly condemned liberty of speech, liberty of the press, liberty of worship, and the very liberty of conscience which he demands. If the Roman Catholic is deprived of liberty of conscience his quarrel is with his Church which deprives him of so much, and not with this Province in which he is absolutely free.

A PRIEST-MADE CONSCIENCE.

There is no use blinking the facts, and if the Roman Catholic citizen is candid he will admit that his quarrel with national schools arises from no conscientious convictions as an individual, but from the attitude taken by his Church. Dr. Ryerson, who was Chief Superintendent of Education of Upper Canada and Ontario from 1844 to 1876, plainly perceived this state of facts, and thus explained the position in one of his writings before Confederation:

"Separate school education is now a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, as much as the immaculate conception is. In 1850 the Roman Catholic College of Thurles, in Ireland, passed a statute condemnatory of mixed education; the Roman Catholic Provincial Colleges of Baltimore and Quebec have since done the same. These statutes have been ratified by the Pope. This is therefore the dogma of the Church, however much it may fall into disuse in some places, as Sir Thomas N. Redington says it does in some places in Ireland."

The fight for national schools, then, is not with the Roman Catholic as an individual, but with the Roman Catholic Church and its arrogant claim, as stated by Mr. Gladstone, that in the conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the ecclesiastical commands must prevail.

STIMULATING THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSCIENCE.

It is only natural that "convictions" thus imposed ready-made upon the adherents of the Roman Catholic church, and not