Catholic Problems in Western Canada Part 7

Authority and liberty are the two poles on which revolves Society. The perfect equilibrium of these two contending forces, one centripetal, the other centrifugal, make for its safety and welfare. The encroachment of one upon the other displaces the social 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. The violation of a natural law bears always with itself its own punishment. For, society is not the conventional creation of man; it is governed by laws that man does not make, but, which his reason and experience discover and to which he must submit.

This perfect equilibrium of authority and liberty is perfectly expressed in Lincoln's famous definition: "A sane democracy is one of the people, by the people and for the people." The reason of this law of the political order 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 economist, made this just and pertinent remark: "The truly free nations are those who, without compromising this prosperity, extend the benefices of private life at the expense of public life." (Reforme Sociale II, page 92.)

Therefore the ideal State exists when all civil or social rights-which stand for the public enjoyment of all natural rights-are fully protected by political rights. These political liberties moreover 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 vice versa. The collective forces of a society are for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for them. A State is an inst.i.tution for the protection of rights inherent to a free people.

The negation of this principle leads to the State paternalism which stands for the interference of State in matters which by right belong to the individual and the family. Never has State interference and State protection been more exaggerated than they are nowadays. The pa.s.sing 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 censors.h.i.+p and dictatorial methods. "The Executive has usurped the functions that rightly belong to the legislative a.s.sembly, with a virtual dictators.h.i.+p as the inevitable result." The consequence of State Paternalism is the death of individual liberty either through socialism or autocracy. Man becomes the chattel of a bureaucratic government.

Of all civil liberties there is none more sacred, more fundamental than that of education. The freedom of education means the right of a parent to give to his offspring an education in harmony with his concept of life, with the dictates 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 citizen of this right is to penalize him and oblige him-as is the case in Manitoba-to buy twice over a right of conscience. This condition wherever it exists is a flagrant abuse of political authority and consequently a social disorder.

Some may object to our argumentation and answer that in a modern democracy the majority rules, and the majority in the West are against "separate schools." The political right of the majority cannot cancel a moral right of the minority. It is a case here of repeating the statement of Burke: "The tyranny of a democracy is the most 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 ill.u.s.tration of this autocracy of number. Did not Germany use the same argument to crush Belgium and to try to dominate the World? Our sons have fought and died in this war against Prussianism and yet some of our Canadians-not worthy of the name-would willingly vote drastic measures of governmental repression which would make the Kaiser smile and the Czar Nicholas turn in his grave. The velvet glove may cover the mail-fist, but the blow is the same.

Others may claim that the State has a right to "Uniformity in the education of its citizens." This is the pretension of those who now are advocating so strongly and so widely the "federalization of our schools." We will not discuss the value 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 education. But its interference should be consistent with the prior and more fundamental rights of the individual and the family and not become a usurpation or abrogation of them. Otherwise it would be the wrong way of doing the right thing.

IV.-A National Reason

The Const.i.tution of a country has as its specific object the maintenance of the perfect equilibrium between authority and liberty. "It is the charter of a people's liberties, the s.h.i.+eld of the individual against the possible tyranny of government, the effective check upon the ambition of every government to extend the sphere of its delegated powers. Unlike the law, its primary purpose is to restrain the Government, not the citizen... ." (P. Blakely, S.J.) America, Sept. 18, 1920.

The greatest liberty for the individual, combined with the greatest good of the commonwealth, has always been the ideal aimed at by the Fathers of a democratic country. To tamper with the Const.i.tution on vital issues, to conceive it as an experiment, to ignore its spirit,-that obvious intention 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 Const.i.tution of a country act as a time-fuse. An explosion necessarily follows, although it may take years and generations for a faulty legislation to disclose its real consequences. This is particularly true in matters of education. Laws of the educational departments may change to become more efficient in their administration but should never touch the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Const.i.tution.

In Canada the protection of the minority rights is a principle embodied in our Const.i.tution, in the Imperial Statute of the British North America. Act. Even where the letter of the Provincial Law has established the "public school,"-as is the case in the Maritime Provinces-the spirit of the law is generally observed, and by a compromise and tacit agreement the rights of the minority are to a great extent recognized.

In the West, Manitoba stands out in Canadian History as the battlefield of educational rights. Although the British North America Act, 1867,-that intangible charter of Canadian liberties-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 should be respected, yet, the Manitoba Legislative a.s.sembly has broken away from the letter and spirit of the Const.i.tution and const.i.tuted a grievance which demands rectification.

The Federal Parliament partially recognized the principle of Separate Schools in the formation of the Provinces of Saskatchewan and of Alberta, by introducing, in section 17 of the Autonomy Bills of 1905, the section 93 of the B.N.A. Act, and by rea.s.serting the existing rights granted by the N.W.T. School Ordinances of 1901. We say "partially," for it is not the right of collecting separate taxes and teaching Religion during the last half hour of the school-day that const.i.tutes a really Catholic school.

The "Separate schools" in Saskatchewan and Alberta stand on the solid granite of our Const.i.tution. The highest tribunals of the land and the Empire have implicitly recognized the principle of the minority-schools in many of their decisions. Moreover, let us not forget 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 was also enacted to protect the protestant minority of the Territories. Our Non-Catholic opponents should not forget this origin of our separate schools. What their fathers appreciated then for their children, we appreciate now for ours. The principle remains unchanged.

Some may be surprised at our contention to make an argument in favour of separate schools out of the very point on which rests the scaffolding of those who oppose them. They claim that the minority school principle is the greatest enemy of Canadian Unity. What we need, they say, is to standardize our schools, 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 movement. A National Bureau of Education-a non-government inst.i.tution, at least for the time being; a survey of school text-books throughout the Provinces, a study of matters affecting the status of the teaching profession-such are the duties that this National Council of Education has a.s.sumed at its first gathering.

This movement towards Federal control of schools involves the denial and the eventual suppression of the minority-principle in our system of Education. This nationalization of Education, we claim, is erroneous in its principle, anti-const.i.tutional in its operation, and dangerous in its consequences. Uniformity in education, 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 tariff, readily acceptable to the East and to the West, is Utopian, how much more so would be the unity of the school system? Education, to be effective, must take the colour of the environments to meet the needs of the community. The levelling process would be most detrimental, for uniformity in education is the seed of decay.

And it is on the plea of making better Canadians that the promoters of "national schools" are drifting from the very basic principle of our educational system, from the law and spirit of our Const.i.tution. Our form of Government, as we all know, is dual. Matters of education are relevant to the Province. The more the Province will abdicate its claims, and submit to the growing influence of the Federal powers, the greater will be the danger of losing the political equilibrium of Confederation. Unstable equilibrium, once disturbed, is hardly ever re-established. The centrifugal forces of the Province protect our liberties against the possible 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 the realization of the dreams of our nationalizers. Quebec, we maintain, is the most sane Province of the Dominion, and the greatest help to the maintenance of Confederation. This is now an admitted fact by every serious and broad minded Canadian. Its conservatism acts, we would say, as the governor on the complicated machine of Canadian political life. It regulates its speed and keeps it within the limits of safety. Moreover, we ask, how could a system which would deny the principles and rights of over forty per cent. of the population be rightly and justly named "national"? No one has the right to a.s.sume the monopoly of "nationalism."

"The self-appointed or State-appointed nationalizer, we would say with Father Millar, S.J., ignorant of our real history or its true meaning, is fast becoming a menace to the sanity of our laws and to the supreme wisdom of a traditional national policy." [2]

And what will be the consequences of this levelling uniformity that crushes parental right and fuses the powers of Provinces into a Federal unit? The Prussian 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 true-in the political life of our country. The armies that our boys fought on the fields of Flanders were formed and trained in the national schools of Germany.

V.-A British Reason

The great misfortune of many who clamour against our separate schools is their total ignorance of our history and of the spirit that the liberty-loving Fathers of the Confederation have breathed into our laws. To them "national reasons" may not appeal. This is very often the case of 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 inst.i.tutions. It has no traditions, and traditions are the hidden roots that plunge down into the soil of history, into the hearts of past generations, and give to a people, its real national life. Therefore, a "British reason," a reason founded on British traditions, on the British way of doing things in the Colonies, may make a stronger appeal to our Western mentality.

Freedom and fair play for every citizen within the Empire, the recognition of racial and religious rights, have been the strength and success of the British Government 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 public man wrote some years ago when, under the pen-name of "Daylight" he discussed the "Separate School problem" in the columns of "The Regina Leader," January 3rd, 1916.

"In conclusion there are one or two general remarks I should like to make. It has always appeared to me that there is among our English-speaking people of Canada a section of the community that holds extreme views on all matters pertaining to nationality and religion. This section holds and advocates the idea, that there must be no compromise in dealing with matters pertaining to race and religion. In a word, they would set about at once to "Prussianize" our complex population. They forget, or entirely ignore, the fact that this is not the British plan. 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 const.i.tution 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 have more of this spirit in Canada, and particularly in Western Canada? Some people are mightily concerned about our foreign-born population. They imagine that the process of a.s.similation can and should be accomplished in a day. Nothing is further from the truth. The process is necessarily a slow one. It is bound to take two or three, and in some cases, more generations. In the meantime we should strive to make these people feel that they are welcome to our broad open plains and to our citizens.h.i.+p. As to the final outcome no one need have any doubt."

The principle that has created the British Empire is the only principle that will keep it on the map of the world. This is history, philosophy, and common sense.

And when we see England recognizing the Catholic elementary schools and subsidizing to a certain extent our secondary schools, when Scotland has just brought the Catholic schools 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 like saying, "Go back to England and Scotland, from whence you or your forefathers came and learn from the Home Country the lesson of tolerance, of sane political government."

VI.-A Historical Reason

In the discussion of many problems we are liable, particularly in the West, to limit our vision to conditions as they present themselves to the observer. This is more noticeable in the educational field. This frame of mind may be traced to various causes. But there is one cause which, we believe, is more responsible than others.

Unconsciously our age is "evolutionist." "The intellectual movement of 'evolution,'" said Glenn Frank, "was not the private plaything of biologists in sequestered laboratories, but a force that altered men's conceptions 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 last and improved effort of man in his eternal struggle to express an unknown and always receding ideal. This has accustomed the mind to look upon the past but as a rudiment, an outline, a preparation of the future.

Without entering into the discussion of the objective evidence of the theory of evolution we may say that as far as education is concerned its premises are false. The human soul remains substantially the same and the process of its education 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 precious not only because they show us where others made mistakes but also because they show us the successes of the past. The better we know these, the deeper our admiration for them, the better the outlook for ourselves and our accomplishment."

The State-school is an inst.i.tution comparatively of very recent date and has no right to be heralded as the final expression of an educational system in a democracy. The history of education shows a lineage of men who can be more than favorably compared with the sons of our common schools. The ma.s.s of the people have indeed 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 studies. This sense of duty and the feeling of responsibility are not a necessary consequence of state schools. On the contrary they are more liable to be found in independent inst.i.tutions. For, as we have seen, when the State subst.i.tutes itself for the family, the first consequence is the unchallenged yield of parental rights.

Those who would make an excursion into history and compare our modern educational systems with those of the past will find illuminating points of comparison and instructive conclusions. We would advise them to take Dr. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., Litt.D., as guide. His books: "Education, how Old the New"-"The Thirteenth Century"-will prove most interesting reading.

Already a reactionary policy is being enacted in several countries where for years the State-School was the only one to share in the public treasury. In Holland, the Parliament of June, 1920, by a vote of 72 against 3, pa.s.sed a new school-law which recognizes and subsidizes all separate primary, high and normal schools. In Italy, the Minister 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 pa.s.sed out of the hands of the Government. France, Portugal, Argentine Republic are fighting for the same freedom. In Poland's new charter of liberties, granted by the Treaty of Versailles, the rights of the minority in school matters are guaranteed. Our Canadian representatives signed this doc.u.ment. We were granting then to the new Republic a sacred right which we still refuse to our own at home, in the Province of Manitoba!

VII.-A Religious Reason

The creation of the state-school, necessarily undenominational in character, has made the "separate school" an absolute necessity. If religion has any meaning in life this reason of our separation should be most convincing.

In education one cannot separate the utilitarian side,-the fitting of the child for the struggle of life,-from its main purpose,-the development of moral character. The moral aspect alone gives to human life its true character, its real value. As there is no morality without religion, the system of education that would debar 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 their own money to support their "separate schools" they willingly penalize themselves to give them this benefit. The child's eternal welfare is not to be sacrificed to a school system that has not even accomplished the purpose for which it was established. For, as we shall see, a neutral school is a practical impossibility.

Those who fail to understand the pressing force of this viewpoint have in our opinion lost the sense and sacredness of religion. They are astonished at the bitterness that characterizes at times the conflict. Are not religious and racial issues so intimately united with the very conception of life that they hold to the most intimate fibres of the human heart? For a Catholic, Religion is life itself in its most sacred aspect.

But, our opponents will argue, in a country like Canada, where "organized" religion-to speak their language-is so denominational, religion in school is an impossibility. 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 stand united in our faith, are to surrender what we consider most essential in education and-lest we forget it-most protective to the best interests of our Country?

What does the State give us to replace the "separate school"? A neutral, undenominational, irreligious school. This neutrality we claim, is erroneous in theory and impossible in practice. The theory of the neutral school is erroneous because it is against the teaching of sound psychology and true pedagogy.

The soul of the child cannot be, as it were, divided into watertight compartments so as to segregate religious influence from its daily training. As Cardinal O'Connell stated, "We Catholics believe that as character is by far the most important product of education, 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 of the child ought normally to keep pace with his mental growth and the Church is convinced that taking human nature as it is, the result cannot be obtained effectively without including a judicious mixture of religious training with the daily routine of the school."

In fact a neutral school is an impossibility. We will simply ask our readers a few questions and rely on their fairmindedness to formulate the answers. Can the teaching 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 G.o.d, to Jesus Christ, to an eternal sanction? Can a teacher divest himself of his mental att.i.tude in the teaching of these subjects and answering the questions of the pupils?

Were the teaching really neutral, the very atmosphere of the school-room is what counts. This atmosphere is indefinable and yet everywhere felt. It is made of trifles, but of trifles that count at that receptive age of childhood. As a subtle perfume it impregnates the soul of the child with ideas and impressions which it will carry through life. Therefore the atmosphere of the cla.s.s-room, we claim, should be as near as possible, that of the home. The parents have a right to see that it should be so. Is this possible in a neutral school? Its very negative character impregnates the cla.s.s-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 pa.s.ses the threshold of the school-room? "What we most dread," said Bishop McQuaid, "is not the direct teaching of the State-school, it is the indirect teaching which is most insidious and most dangerous. It is the moral atmosphere, the tone of thought permeating these schools that give cause for alarm. It is the indifferentism with regard to all religious belief we most of all fear. This is the dominant heresy that, imbibed in youth, can scarcely ever be eradicated. It is one that already has in our large towns and cities decimated Protestant Churches."

Even the provision of optional religious instruction at the dying hour of the cla.s.s-day cannot redeem the neutral school. In fact the Survey of School conditions in Saskatchewan 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 schools not more than 212 reported as availing themselves of the law on religious instruction. We leave to the reader to draw the conclusion these recent statistics suggest.

To conclude this already too lengthy argument, facts are vindicating in every country the saneness of the Catholic view-point on religious instruction and atmosphere in the school. The alarming increase of religious indifference, the rising tide of anarchy, the universal feeling of unrest, have prompted the unequivocal admissions of leaders of thought as to the moral failure of the neutral school.

Mr. William Jennings Bryan, in an address before the const.i.tutional convention of Nebraska, a few years ago, brought this striking indictment against the State educational system of the United States. "The greatest menace to the public school system of to-day is, in my judgment, its G.o.dlessness. We have allowed 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 all sects and creeds should have equal opportunity to furnish at their own expense to students whose parents desire it, such instruction not to interfere with the hours of school. Our people will be better citizens and stronger for their work if along with the trained mind there is also an awakened moral sense."

In a recent report of the Interchurch Movement, based on a survey of American Education, prevailing conditions that now threaten the safety of State and Church are openly imputed to the neglect 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 "Protestantism's weakest spot." Emphatic endors.e.m.e.nt is given to the "denominational school" and full credit is not denied to the emphasis placed upon religious teaching in schools by the Catholic Church.

"It would be absolute madness," said Cardinal Bourne, at an Educational meeting in Edinburgh, "on the part of any civil authority at the present day to spurn and reject the educational a.s.sistance and educational power the Catholic Church was willing and ready to place at their disposal."

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 princ.i.p.al 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.