In our own country, the urgent necessity of introducing religion in our public school is now for every serious-minded Canadian an agonizing problem. How many attempts have been made to solve it? Was it not the principal topic discussed at the Educational Conference of Winnipeg (1919)?
The neutral school, we conclude, has been weighed and found wanting. The hand-writing is on the wall of every country where the experiment has been made and tells the same tale. Facts and principles give reason to our "Separate Schools."
* * * * * *
Why "Separate Schools?"—Because it is our right and our duty to have them.—This is our simple and straightforward answer to the ever renascent objection of those who are not of our opinion. That right rests on the solid rock of Justice, of History and of Religion; that duty we owe to our children, to ourselves, to our Church, and to our country.
[1] This chapter formed a series of articles in the North West Review of Winnipeg. The following editorial comment accompanied our concluding article.
"This week we publish the last of the series of articles by Father
Daly, C.SS.R., dealing with the separate school question.
"We consider his contribution on this ever topical and historic problem one of the best reasoned and for the average man the most concise and useful yet published. It might well be issued in pamphlet form and kept for reference in every Catholic 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 can never be compromised. A solid and reasoned knowledge of this fact is in some respects as essential as if it were an article of faith, especially in Western Canada, which, as Father Daly points out, is the classic land of the school problem.
"Doubtless attempts will be made in the future to bring elementary education through the pretext of Canadianization, under the "invisible head" of this country. Or as in the United States segregated attempts may be made to abolish parochial schools altogether.
"Where there are so many probabilities and so much at stake it might be well for the average Catholic to be in a position to give a good account of himself by showing a thorough understanding of the question.
"If the present civilization succeeds, it will do so by adopting the methods of some, if not all, of our big corporations of to-day, and thus make of nations, huge 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 absolute control of education—an end that will never be reached so long as the Catholic Church continues to save Christian civilization through its religious schools.