Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 333, 5 September 1879, Page 1

Current Topics.

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R. NEWMAN is reported to have said in his address at Wellington the other day that one of the Ministers, while claiming £1,500 a year and travelling expenses, was sending his son to a free school. There is, however, nothing at all extraordinary in this ; it is the merest pretence to assert that our free schools are intended for the children of the poor. Experience amply proves the contrary, and most conclusively shows that of all the deceits of " Liberalism" or the democracy there is none more glaring than this. Free schools have been most undeniably convicted of resulting in either elbowing the children of the poor altogether into the street, as in the case mentioned the other day in the English House of Commons, or in sacrificing their needs to the wants of children of the wealthier classes. Parents, teachers, and inspectors are but ordinary flesh and blood, and it is not to be expected that any of the three can with equanimity see a class of pupils partly composed of elegantly attired young masters and misses and partly of children betraying all the marks of poverty. It is too much to believe that any of the parties concerned in the supervision of such a class, except in most rare instances, could maintain an impartial aspect, that parents should not turn up their noses, teachers should not betray favouritism, or that inspectors should insist upon the curriculum being maintained at the suitable standard. We in New Zealand are only setting out upon the course, and since the country is still in its infancy the difference between class and class is not yet so much marked as it is elsewhere, but our system of free and compulsory Bchools must inevitably follow in the path in which it has run elsewhere. That " glory of America," her public schools, has been the standard proposed here for admiration and imitation, and we have no doubt whatever that it will be faithfully copied here. Indeed already we see the disposition to make of our Government schools institutions in which the children of our sprouting aristocracy may be trained to the acquirement of the slight smattering of information required to permit of their passing with credit through the somewhat pedantic society that imperfectly educated people of aspiring minds seem inclined to form just now, rather than to insure to the children of people engaged in earning an honest livelihood the means of following successfully in their parents' footsteps, or, if they have the stamina, of raising themselves in life. We see, in a word, every reason to believe that our much vaunted and warmly supported systsm bids fair to follow closely the lead of that in the United States. Dr. Newman may depend upon it that the Minister's young gentleman is just the eort of personage for whose benefit our schools have been established and that poor men's children will ere long receive the cold shoulder there, if indeed they have not already received it. Our poorer classes need not expect to fare one bit better than do their brethren in America, and as a warning of how poor men's children are treated over there take the following paragraph clipped from the Omaha Herald, a non-Catholic newspaper :— " The mistake is constantly made of discussing this question on the false theory that our popular system of free schools was founded for the benefit of the individual. This is so far from being true as to be clearly and absolutely false. Upon no ground can the right to tax for the support of the common schools be maintained except that they were established for the benefit of the State— i.e., to make good citizenship, to spread intelligence, and the lasii/or acquiring it, among the people of a free country. Aside from this principle, however, the main objection to the present cramming order is, as we have said a thousand times or less, that education under the existing order, fails to educate the children of the people in those things whereof they stand in such vital need. Seven-ten tlis of the children in the common schools in Omaha, for example, because their parents are poor, and either require their services for the family support, or wisely desire to put them into the mechanical trades, do not have the time in the schools to acquire more than the ' three RV in the only way in which acquiring them does them the best attainable good. Their minds are stuffed

and crammed and dosed with so much flummery, their young memories are so taxed and overwhelmed that they have only a surface knowledge of both the essential and the non-essential, and not one in a dozen of them carry out of the schools any knowledge beyond reading which they can practically apply to the ordinary avocations."

Dr. Dollinger has attempted to justify his accusations against Cardinal Newman's works, and he has succeeded only in displaying more clearly to the world to how great a depth he has fallen. It ia a piteous thing to see a man, once so much worthy of respect, convicted of rushing forward in frantic malice, and uttering an accusation which he could not even attempt to sustain. The accusation was, that it was the fact of their being written in the English language only that had prevented his Eminence's works from being placed upon the index. But now this is abandoned, and the accuser enters quite upon another course by asserting that certain of the Cardinal's writings had actually given deep offence at Rome, but that fear of what might be produced amongst the English people hindered the condemnation of the illustrious writer. It is, we say, pitiable to contemplate so great a fall, and this fall is made all the more conspicuous by our rinding the ecclesiastic who has suffered it, now sneering bitterly at teaching long received by him as excellent. Truly his total shipwreck may warn us of the danger of swerving from the truth in any degree. Rebellion against even one article of the Church's doctrine ends in the complete corruption of the mind and heart.

We learn from the London Tunes that the Rev. D. Macrae and his heresy are likely to prove a very serious affair for Presbyterianism in Scotland. It seems the reverend unbeliever in everlasting torment is of determined mind, and is resolved not to be got rid of, and shoved out of sight for ever at a moment's notice. He wants to know what are the rights of his condemnation, what is the faith of the Church on this point on which he is accused, and how he has departed from it. He seems, moreover to have a strong spice of mischief in him, for the more he is aware that the question is a very ticklish one, and one on which the powers that be are especially unwilling to enter, the more determined he is to force them on a public definition of their doctrine. And the worst of it all is that the laity to a very large extent sympathise with him ; only for this, in fact, he could be quite easily disposed of. We can quite understand that the sincere followers of Calvin must be in a sad quandary respecting this matter. Of all the creeds in the world that which they hold relies the most on an everlasting hell. The doctrine of election, the doctrine of reprobation, all its strong points stand or fall with this, and if the belief be relinquished there would be nothing in the world to uphold the reputation of Presbyterianism's patron saint. It was certainly a most untoward undertaking of this reverend minister to grow sceptical on this particular point. He could have chosen nothing more inconvenient. The Times saya he will be thrown overboard, but it expects that he will find a whale in the laity who will receive the outcast, and establish him high and dry in all safety and honour. It adds : "The general impression is that the decline of dogma in Scotland is more likely to be accelerated than to be retarded by prosecutions and pains and penalties." Meantime it is much to be hoped that those good folk amongst us here who are so anxious for Bible reading in the schools will see to it, in case their object be attained, that the Rev. Mr. Macrae's interpretation is not that taken up by the children. If these commentators of tender years were to adopt such views it would be a very serious matter, but who shall say since a learned minister and a large portion of a laity well instructed in the Bible have taken them up in Scotland that they may not be the very notions spontaneously generated in our schools here. Bible reading, now-a-days, most assuredly produces various results. Who can answer for it ?

Were we in need of anything to spur us on in our opposition to secular education, or to confirm us in our views of its mischievous tendencies, we should find it in articles written on it from time to time by some of the principal contributors to European periodicals ; men who cannot be accused of any undue tendency towards favouring the Church, and who are in a position to deliver calm and deliberate judgments about that which comes under their eyes, as well as to

support their opinions by facts and figures, and the utterances of eminent men who either belong to our own day, or concerning whom history informs us. "We were lately enabled to give some very important quotations concerning this matter from the Quarterly Review, we now find the Revue des Devr Mondes furnish us with matter no less deserving of attention, and it is very significant to find writers belonging to different countries, speaking different languages, and surrounded by widely different circumstances, substantially agreed on any particular subject. The quotations then which we now put forward are taken from an article written by M. Albert Duruy in the publication in question of June 1, 79. It is on the education bill of M. Jules Ferry, and the following is one of the paragraphs in which this measure is described : M. Ferry knows nothing of society ; he despises and excludes social influences ; he wrests from free teaching its representation, its guarantees, its time-honoured jurisdiction ; he makes of it an object of suspicion ; he almost directly accuses it ; he takes away from it its natural advocates and establishes against it a jury on which its enemies will be in the proportion of twelve to one. Apart from the teaching State and the University, outside of their exclusive domination and common interests, there will be no special right, no private and competing interests, no associations, no possible resource against arbitrariness. The clique of the pedagogue will reign without a rival ; it will both reign and govern. Ihe writer a few lines further on calls the present fashionable notions concerning the educating State " The false and tyrannical doctrine of the teaching State." Much as we who write in the New Zealand Tablet, then, have been ridiculed and blamed for naming the system, under which it is attempted to crush out our faith, tyrannous, the sentiments to be found in our comparatively most obscure columns are borne out in the brilliant pages of one of the leading periodicals of Europe. We do not find anything directly applicable to our own case in the next passage we quote, but, as so much sympathy has been shown for the Bill in question, it cannot be out of place to throw light upon the hardships in which its measures must result, and the blow to be inflicted by it on French society generally. There are now in France 141 unauthorised congregations employed in teaching, that is, 125 congregations of women, and 16 of men. These congregations possess 641 establishments, made up thus : SGO establishments of women, 81 of men. The number of pupils who frequent these establishments is 61,409 ; that is 41,174 girls and 20,235 boys, of whom 9513 receive an education wholly or partially free. Finally, the number of professors and superintendents of both sexes belonging to these different teaching congregations is 6,454 : 4898 nuns and 1556 monks. Well, then, if article 7 were voted, 141 congregations, 641 establishments, 61,409 of the youth of both sexes, of whom 9513 are free pupils, would be stricken, 641 establishments would be deprived of their property without any inquiry, and without indemnity. 67,000 individuals and consequently 67,000 families belonging largely to the middle classes would be injured in their fortunes, oppressed in their beliefs, or at the very least, hampered in their customs. More than 9000 children, educated gratuitously by the unauthorised congregations, and on whose account these expend annually 1,186,076 francs, would be thrown b?ck into misery and vice. Who would receive them ? The State 1 But its establishments are already crammed with fiee pupils. The last official statistics confess it, its budget is swollen beyond bounds, and it has with difficulty afforded support to all the sons of all those who fell on the battle-field during the late war. The writer then goes on to speak of the University of France, which he regrets, and he takes occasion to quote M. Ledru-Eollin, who named the compulsory attendance of children at particular schools, "The conscription of childhood," and condemned it as "the greatest suffering that could be inflicted on an individual. He tells us that the true motive of the attack on the congregations is that in '76 they had 127 of their pupils received at St. Cyr, and 39 at the Ecolc Polytechniqvf. This, says he, is all their crime. He next points out how enormous must be the increase of expense to the State, if the teaching orders and their schools be swept away : and this is a matter that directly interests us, since mutatis mutandis all he points out is applicable to our position here. On tLo 31st December, '70 the secondary schools conducted by unauthorised congregations had in all 19,960 pupils, these establishments, however, received no subsidies of any soit, or in any way, from the State. They were self-supporting. Neither did they impose any great saciifices on parents, for the official statistics give the average of school fees as follows .-—Boarders, 543 francp, 76 (not quite £22); day b -ders, ?''■> francs, 20 (not quite £13; ; day pupils, ]33 francs (a little over . Bo that there were 19,900 pupils who ex si the State uthing, ai. ose education, taken all together, bore reasonably on their families. Now, if we compare thisfitate of affairs with thelyceums, and collq.^, whatdowefind? In '76 the sub<si. 7 y for public c < >ndary education amounted for the State to 5,568,356 francs ; for the departments to 467,073 francs ; for the communes to 4,143,626 francs ; total 10.179.054 fiancs. In this same year '76 the nuu/.sr of prpi'- was, in the lyceums. 40,995; in the colleges, 38,636 ; total, 79,631. Let us then divide the figures of the subsidy by those of the pupils: 10,179,056 by 79,631, the result is 127. Every pupil, theu, in a college or lyctum costs the country

annually 127 francs. On the one side the cost is nothing ; on the other it is 127 francs (about £5). The writer then goeß on to show the fallacy of the argument that the public schools are expensive only because of the fewness of their pupils, and that their cost would be lessened by an increase in the number of these. If, he says, as a consequence of clause 7, the 20,000 youths who now attend the congregational schools entered our lyceums, it would be necessary to augment the subsidy four-fold, without counting the millions that must be expended on building. Let it be remarked, <he continues, that our argument only bears on the secondary teaching ; unfortunately in all that concerns primary we possess imperfect data. But who is ignorant of the important part taken by the unauthorised congregations in this kind of teaching. Who does not know with what self-denial the members of certain religious communities devote themselves to the rudest tasks. If M. the Minister of Public Instruction were somewhat more accustomed to his place he would know that it is not always possible to find male and female lay teachers who will go and take up their abode 1500 metres above the level of the sea : in our Alpine and Pyrenean departments, for instance, the administration is never short of congregationists. They go there under the snow, as they went under fire at the time of the siege to carry in our wounded. Self-devotion is their calling. We are again nearly concerned in the writer's next statement ; it is that every year the expenses of the Government system of education increases ; its needs every year become more numerous and pressing. The body of public teachers become more exacting, — a matter for our especial consideration. They desire higher salaries, and it is but natural they should do so ; the more especially if they are required, as in the case of this colony, to add to the number of subjects in which they shall give instruction. They would, in short, be treated with gross injustice were they not additionally remunerated, and teachers with a just grievance are not teachers from whom good work may be expected. The writer shows that already a secular system has been attempted in France, and that it utterly failed. In 1793, they also wished everywhere to substitute the action of the State for private enterprise and action. The Convention suppressed by a stroke of the pen universities, colleges, and lesser schools ; it blotted out all the scholastic institutions of the Ancien Regime, and from the accumulated ruins attempted to construct a system of national education. It only attained, after many trials, and with the exception of some fine creations, such as the Museum and the Ecole Polytechnique, to the most complete impotence. Let us beware of falling into the same fault. Let us distrust the dangerous theory of the teaching State. But perhaps the most important for us of all the telling arguments against the secular system brought forward by thia writer is that in which he points out the danger of a monopoly, and the wholesomeness of competition. If this danger is apparent in France, in Paris, the vary stage of all the civilized world, where e/ery public man must regard himself and hi-, work as exposed to a blaze of light that allows of no secrets, what must it be in remote places where sleepiness may well prevail un letected. Can it be thought, he asks, that our professors of elementary >nd special mathematics would take so much trouble and care with their classes if they were not afraid of the pi ogress at the school of SainteGenevieve. They would grow drowsy under the power of a monopoly; we are in a position to say so at present ; the law of '50 roused them, as the creation of the school of higher studies in '69, and of the Catholic Universities in '76 roused our faculties. At all times corporations have felt the need of stimulus ; at all times it has been needful to make them feel the spur. In the sixteenth century Francis I. created the College de France, opposite the Sorbonne ; in the seventeenth, Louis XIII. founded the Jardin des Plantes, beside the Faculty of Medicine. Under the rule of a university monopoly, by virtue of the same necessities, to provide for the same needs, the general competition of Parisian lyceums was instituted, and in our days it was considered advisable to extend this institution to all our academies. There are the proofs, the examples ; will they now have us, in support of these proofs, invoke the authority of most competent men— men even the most illustrious ? M. Saint-Marc Girardin said in '37, from the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies, " I do not ffeatr t competition for the university ;on the contrary, I desire it. . , ! There is need of competition, of rivalry ; without rivalry, we go asleep Let the spirit of rivahy come then, we have need of it." M. Guizot said also in the same discussion : " Before 1789, gentlemen, there was in France, respecting a vast and active competition between all the private .ablishments, all the congregations, all the foundations, learned, h rary, and religious, which were occupied in public instrucuon. This competition -was very active, very efficacious, and it is to this comr ■ h a t, in a great degree, were due the benefits of the educatioi of the time." Fifty years earlier Talleyrand had expressed tl thought in his famous report :— " If every one," I c said, " ha^ the right to receive the benefits of instruction, every one has, on the other hand, the right to compete in spreading it abroad. For it is from the competition and rivalry of individual efforts that the gieatest good will always spring. . . Svery privilege, in its nature, is odious. A privilege in the matter

of instruction would be still more odious and absurd." Finally, the great Cardinal, Eichelieu bimself, was a partisan of competition ; he discovered in it a special virtue, and we may read in the admirable monument of political wisdom he has left in his Will this significant sentence : " It was fitting that the Universities and the Jesuits should teach at will in order that emulation might sharpen their abilities, and that learning might be so much the more firmly established in such a condition that if the one body should lose so sacred a deco-sit, it might be found again amongst the other." Such is the test^coy we find borne by one of the first amongst the leading journals of Europe, and which cannot be suspected of unduly favouring anything Catholic. What shall we say, then, of those small philosophers who have here so loudly ridiculed and blamed us for holding and advancing similar views ? Verily we arc inclined to laugh heartily at their conceit, and the rebuke that emanates from it, but we are with-held from merriment, by a recollection of the mischief circumstances enable them to work if they insist upon it.

Now that Mr. Oliver returns to Parliament, we wait with curiosity to learn what it is that the atmosphere of the legislative chambers will next cause to take a different savour in his nostrils. When this gentleman went up for the first time he went as an ardent supporter of Sir George Grey, and he went enthusiastically aided by Mr. G. M. Reed. But he told us the other day that his Parliamentary experience had resulted in revolting him against the Premier, and he rewarded his gushing friend, the ex-editor, by loudly condemning the recompense bestowed upon him, among other things for the very work performed in securing the hon. member's own return. Perhaps, however, he considered that he had done his part in keeping silence while the appointment in question was made, so that now, when the opportunity offered, he was at liberty to manifest his manly and independent spirit by the condemnation of a job. Nevertheless, we have seen quite enough to satisfy us that a tortuous career on Ihe part of the hon. member is to be looked forward to, and we may even find that tlie next twist through which he wriggles will place him side by side with his brother representatives, the advocates of the Bible-in-schools. Anything in short may be expected from a man who, without a word of warning, feels himself at liberty to turn upon his friends,— even although he took good care to let one of them, at least, be placed beyond the reach of injury before he attacked him.

The Otago Daily Times treats its readers to a scurrilous article on the education question. He designates as "malcontents" the opponents of the secular system. We, however, console ourselves by the knowledge that while siach a term is used towards us in the columns of an, even for the colonies, anything but first-class journal, we find one of the most famous of European periodicals, the Revue des Devx Mondes, actually incurring the very reproach our good contemporary considers himself justified in hurling at us. Verily we, the opponents of secularism, are insulted in good company.

The second of the series of Pastoral Letters on education by the Archbishop of Sydney was read in the churches of the Arch-diocese on Sunday, 24th ult. The drift of the letter is to show how in England resistance to the " Great Apostasy," and respect for religion are maintained so that it is recognized as a necessity to furnish Catholics with the means of educating their children in their own faith. It is needless to say that like every other utterance of the Archbishop the letter is distinguished by its great ability, but in addition the tone of firtrness that pervades it, together with its extreme courtesy towards non- Catholics reminds us of the style of Cardinal Newman. We find in it evidences of that intellectual delicacy which, as Mr. Matthew Arnold informs us, is a necessity in the production of "urbanity of style." His Grace accounts thus for the enduring Christianity of England :— " The English nation, though it be not Catholic, is still in many ways profoundly Christian. For well-nigh a thousand years England lay steeped, as in a bath of supernatural light, in the strong Christianity of the Catholic Church ; and the benign influence ©f the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, of that most touching period of England's history, still exerts a certain &way over the people's conscience. It look possession of, and moulded the national sentiment : and at the date of king St. Edward's death, those laws, customs, and tradition? v.hich still give evidence of their influence, had stamped an character on the national heart. The five centuries of Noi man-English rule consolidated and deepened the woik of the previous period ; and the Catholic Church expanded in power as she did in organization, and became part and parcel, not only of the law, but of the blood and heart of England. Her venerable Sees, her reno',\-ned Universities, her great monastic Orders, her Schools and munificent charities, her large prerogatives in the temporal order, Ler glorious past, written on many an illuminated page, her Saints and Maiiyis, her Kings and Queens, wearing the aureola of sanctity, and her absolute hold on the popular imagination — how could England, living for well-nigh ten hundred years in such a thrall as this, help being permanently affected in her national character 1 Down to the sixteenth century we may fairly say that the land had been living the life

of the Catholic Church, as it has formed some of the most beautiful pages of her history. Since that date, whilst the Church's authority has been rejected, many of her broad fundamental teachings have remained." Tokens of such past influences are still perceptible ; there is a National Church, a hierarchy, there are the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; the surface of things is changed, but the old spirit protects the Christianity of England. There is much of the antique spirit in the high nobility. " The people are, as a body, charitable, earnest, religious, and unconquerable in their perseverance. They love order and law ; they are honourable in their commercial transactions ; they are the most domestic people in t the world, and possess many beautiful natural virtues, which are elevated and refined through those traditionary principles which, as a salt, keep the nation sound at heart, and help to maintain it vigorously Christian. Added to these virtues, there is their deep love and reverence for the Word of God. By its means the idea of the supernatural is kept from dying out, and the thought of the Almighty, His Providence, Christ's Atonement, His mercy, love, and grace become as a precious heritage amongst the people. There the great moral virtues are found illustrated and enforced ; and so deeply is the Bible treasured, that it is looked upon by the masses as being as essential an element in the nation's greatness as the majesty of the throne itself to its stability. Thus, the English people are profoundly impressed with the conviction that the nation's greatness and prestige spring from this principle of Christianity ; that its soundness of heart, its enterprises and its successes on a large scale, are due in the ultimate analysis, to the fact that the broad foundations of the Empire are set in the maxims of the Gospel and the principles dictated by the Inspired Word. Almost as a consequence of this, the t^o leading traits of the national character are honesty and thoroughness : and what Englishmen prize most for themselves and others is civil and religious liberty." At the present hour unity of Faith is gone ; 150 sects occupy its place, and it is abhorrent from the national feeling to invent a scheme for fusing all the religions into one. Such an idea has nothing in it either of honesty or thoroughness. " Englishmen being thorough themselves like others to be thorough also. They infinitely prefer an out-spokon, fearless enemy to ane who cringes. Though they may detest a man's creed or method, they still more detest, they loathei cowardice in him who has not courage to express or to maintain what in his heart he thinks to be the truth. Take the case of English Catholics in English society at home. In thorough English Protestant society'the way to gain influence and respect is to be thorough also. Cardinal Manning having moved in both societies— in Catholic and Protestant— is able to give incontestible evidence upon this point. He, an Englishman, for half his life an Anglican, thoroughly conversant with English ways and views, in his ' Miscellanies,' writes as follows : ' English society, with all its vices,' he says, ■ does, after after all, represent the English character. There is something downright, manly, and decided in it ; and it respects the same, that is, its own qualities, in others as much as it despises 'and ridicules all servile or petty eagerness to court its favour. Downright masculine and decided Catholics — more Koman than Rome, more ultramontane than the Pope himself— may enter English society and be treated with good will and respect everywhere, if only they will hold their own with self-respect and a delicate consideration of what is due to others. It is this very boldness which inspires both respect and confidence. It is the pledge of sincerity , and sincerity is respected by everybody worthy of the name of Englishman. No greater blunder could be committed than to try to propitiate Englishmen or English society by a tame, diluted, timid, or worldly Catholicism.' All this bears directly on Catholic education, for if Englishmen love honesty and thoroughness, they will love them in education also. They will hold that there should be thoroughness and honesty even in holding to diversity of creed. " The national honesty and thoroughness with them is a potent element in national strength. If a man be true to his God, there is a chance of his being true to his country. But he who would barter away his religion, or treat it lightly, would turn out a poor creature in the day of a nation's trial. Hence, though he condemns Catholicity, an Englishman has no faith in a lukewarm Catholic, any more than he has in a timid soldier. He says, in effect, ' Let the nation be brought up honest and thorough, and then we stand a chance of holding our own, and maintaining the 2 )rcstt 9 0 °^ the Empire. Let the young, who will take our places when we are gone, be drilled into this great idea. Let all, of whatever creed, have equal chance in the race, and whilst each is earnestly aud thoroughly trained in his own religion, let all be equally assisted in the fitting of Lhe mind for life's battle when it comes.' " Asa consequence of this master principle, the creed rejected for 300 years leceives, so far as education is concerned, equal treatment with the established creed. England knows a bad Catholic to be a danger to the State, whilst a good one helps towards the national glory. Catholic schools and Protestant are on an equal footing with public schools in great Britain. His Grace then quotes from the report of Catholic schools for the past year. He continues: — " Was it out of love or tenderness for Catholicity, as such, that the great Statesmen of England framed such a system as this ? and was it Iwcause they loved the Pop* that the English people accepted it?

All who have any knowledge of the national spirit are well aware that, had there not been some profound reason connected with the national prosperity, the Catholic Church would have been ill-used in England, or a system would have been set on foot to weaken the blood in Catholic veins, and melt the vigour of Catholic life out of tho-ijj^e. The creeds would have bad to send their children to sch^^ ' \hout religion, ot so arranged that no decent man, with self-respect, could teach religion in them. The creed-schools would be treated with disfavour by the Government or their officials; the State schools would be as palaces through the land, with the best masters and appointments ; whilst those schools, where the love and fear of God, and the great directive principles of religion, were hour by hour insisted on, would, on the principle of the decay of the •weakest, dwindle gradually away, as a nation would be reared up ■with less and less religion, and more and more of that pagan spirit, which is, if history ever taught a lesson, the sure presage of moral effeminacy and national decay. Far-seeing English statesmen, possessing the characteristic of the race, resisted this spirit of national apostasy, and respecting, as gentlemen do, the conscientious convictions of the humblest, gave fair play to all, and conciliated the love and affection of England's Catholic subjects. Thus the nation will continue to hold her own in the broad contests of international life ; her nerve and sinew will be tough, her heart sound ; and the principles of her imperial sway will still be founded in the depth of a Christian spirit. She, on broad, wide reaching principles of statesmanship, maintains a system of education, based on a principle that would satisfy the requirements of the Catholic Church. In resisting ' Secularist Education,' we are, in reality, resisting a principle of national OTerthrow ; and by maintaining our rights as Catholics, we are doing untold service to the State. Here, interests are identical. Here, whilst we are holding, or struggling for our own, we are laying lines of future prosperity. We are the true friends of the people and of the country, for we found our own honour and greatness on our conscientious convictions regarding morality and faith : and let us do all that in us lies to make known to others, who know them not, these great principles of religious liberty, religious thoroughness, and religious honesty, on which imperial England's greatness mainly rests." The Archbishop concludes vrith an exhortation to his people to continue to press their claims ; he at the same time expresses a strong faith in the sense of fair play existing in the minds of the colonists generally, and says he is convinced that when they really grasp the case they will be ready to grant all that Catholics ask for.