CHAPTER VIII.
WHY SEPARATE?[1]
A Moral Reason—A Social Reason—A Political Reason—A National Reason—A British Reason—A Historical Reason—A Religious Reason—For "Separate Schools."
The West is without a doubt the classical land of the "School problem in Canada." The Prairie Provinces will remember the struggles that have marked their birth in the Dominion. The words, "separate schools," rang loud and angry over the cradle of these youngest partners in our Confederation. The conflict has not subsided with years. Although the rights of the minority, at least in Saskatchewan 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 maintains it. But we all know that in this persistent and methodical opposition to our separate schools the fundamental issue is a religious one. Life, after all, is a spiritual value. The school is the great loom on which the rising youth weaves its thread into the great and amazing tapestry of the nation. Who has the mastery of the school, has in the making that mysterious tapestry of human life.
This problem is but an aspect of the eternal struggle between the Christian and the Pagan ideal. The pagan ideal of civilization is the absorption of the individual by the State, the confiscation of liberty by the political monopoly of the nation.
The Christian ideal is the State at the service and for the protection of the individual and of the family. "To Caesar what belongs to Caesar; to God what belongs 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 that explain and justify our persistent attitude on the school problem. They will be our answer to the question which is ever thrown at Catholics in Western Canada:
"Why separate?" We have placed the discussion of this problem on the higher plain of the unchangeable and unchanging principles of truth and justice, for, we are firm believers 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 make you free." Every true Canadian readily grasps the transcendent importance of the problem under examination and should bring to its discussion open-mindedness and sincerity.
I.—A Moral Reason
It is the right and duty of the parent to educate his child. This right is founded on nature. The child is the offspring of the parents, the continuation as it were of their own life. They are therefore the natural educators of their children. When they commit them to the care of others for instruction it is their right to have them educated as they wish. As by the supreme and sacred right of conscience man is 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 from its proper meaning, to recognize it only partially, is to blast the very foundation of human nature. No reason of common good, of citizenship, can overthrow this right; on the contrary, it presupposes it; for, the State can only interfere to protect and help this right. It can never suppress it, and only supplement it when the parents are deficient and fall short of this sacred duty they owe their offspring.
II.—A Social Reason