A CONTEST over the question of separate schools is no new thing in Canadian politics. The present is but one in a series of struggles which the Catholics of Canada have made in defence of the right to educate their children in schools where religious and secular training go hand in hand. But the present controversy is the keenest of all for the reason that both sides appreciate the great interests that are at stake. The two new provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are now being created out of the great territories that lie between Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains, will, in the near future, be the home of millions of people, amongst whom, through immigration, many nations and tongues will be represented. It is precisely a field in which the ardent admirer of common schools would like to see his system in operation and watch it reducing all religions and tongues into one homogeneous type. Not because of any quarrel with public schools for those who believe them best for themselves, but because of considerations that look beyond temporal to eternal results, the advocates of separate schools are anxious that to the great Catholic population the future will see in those provinces should be preserved one of the chief means of securing religious instruction for their children. It is but natural that these opposing trains of thought should come into collision at the moment when the constitutions, which will endure as long as the provinces themselves are being fashioned and their powers determined. A brief review of the history of separate schools in Canada, combined with a discussion of the constitutional question involved, will materially aid in understanding the motives and objects of the present agitation.

It was in 1840 that the question of separate schools first arose in Canada. The great boon of self-government had just been con

ferred upon the people, and Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) were united under a common parliament. Lower Canada was then, as Quebec is to-day, overwhelmingly French in origin and language and Catholic in religion; Upper Canada was then, as Ontario is to-day, largely English in origin and Protestant in religion. There was not in these circumstances much to draw together two colonies, each jealous of its own institutions; but the recent struggle for autonomy by both, their close geographical connection, the common interests in commerce, pressure from the mother country, and the presence in each province of a religious minority that looked to the majority in the other province for protection and support, overcame the centrifugal tendencies and brought into being the union that was the forerunner of the more comprehensive union of 1867. It is to these religious minorities in the earlier and evenly balanced union of the two provinces that we trace the origin of separate schools in Canada.

About this time there was raging in Upper Canada controversy as to whether the Bible should be used in the schools and the uncertainty of its issue led the Catholic minority to demand separate schools. Without any struggle the principle of separate schools was recognized and imbedded in the first school law of Canada, though the details for the working out of the principle were necessarily crude and imperfect. "Any person by merely dissenting from the regulations, arrangements and proceedings of the common school commissioners could establish separate schools." But under the adverse circumstances of the time only a few separate schools were established and their number did not increase in the following decade. Stimulated to greater zeal by the pronouncement of the Council of Baltimore on the subject of Catholic education in 1852, the Catholics bent their energies to secure better terms, and their efforts were rewarded by some very substantial concessions the following year. After that date separate school supporters were exempt from public school rates, their schools shared proportionately in the government grant in aid of primary schools, and separate school trustees became a corporation with power to levy taxes for support of their schools. These concessions alarmed the advocates of public schools, and induced an agitation for the abolition of separate schools. George Brown, editor of the Toronto Globe and a Liberal leader of the time, was the instigator of this movement, which he supported with great vigor in his paper and on the hustings. But his efforts were

unavailing and a few years later marked another advance in separate school legislation. In 1860 R. W. Scott, now Secretary of State for Canada, introduced a separate school bill which met with defeat in three successive years, but finally became law in 1863. The main features of this bill were: Provisions for facilitating the establishment of separate schools in rural districts; permission to Catholics to give notice of their intention to become separate school supporters once for all instead of annually; trustees of separate schools to be relieved from certifying on oath the average attendance of pupils; and provision for inspection of separate schools and their general administration through the council of public instruction. One thing was yet required to make the system complete, namely the right to have separate school taxes collected by municipal officers. For a long time this reasonable request was denied on the ground that it tended to establish a connection between Church and State and was not granted till 1879.

On account of the dissimilarity of conditions in the two provinces, many of the above-mentioned laws applied to Upper Canada only. Meantime a system of Catholic schools had been established by the majority in Lower Canada. Naturally these schools were not acceptable to the Protestant minority, who demanded and were accorded the privilege of establishing separate schools on terms as liberal as those accorded the minority in Upper Canada.

The minorities in the two Canadas had hardly secured these rights, when a new source of anxiety appeared. By the terms of the union of 1840 the two provinces were given an equal number of representatives in Parliament. In time Upper Canada threw its weight into one party and Lower Canada threw its influence into the other party. This condition of affairs induced a deadlock in which government by either party became almost impossible. For relief from such an intolerable situation the party leaders agreed to sink their differences and make an effort to bring about a union of all the British North American colonies. In view of the coming changes the question with the minorities of both Canadas was: "What will be our prospects under the new regime, and how can we best safeguard the privileges already acquired?

John A. Macdonald was the leader of the union movement. For reasons never divulged, but which were thought due to a desire on his part to bring the peculiar institutions of French Canada under the direct control of an English-speaking majority, Mr. Macdonald

was bent on bringing about a legislative, not a federal, union. To this project the Quebec representatives opposed an invincible resolution. They would not confide the institutions of their province, its language laws and schools to the keeping of a Parliament that would be dominated by an unsympathetic and perhaps a hostile majority. In the end the wishes of Quebec prevailed and a federal union was decided upon. But here a new difficulty arose in the objections the Protestants of Quebec raised against a federal union in which, if education were placed under the exclusive control of the provinces, their minority rights would be at the mercy of a French-Catholic majority. As the minority in Ontario had somewhat similar fears for the future of their schools, the matter was settled by resort to a compromise which is set forth in Section 93 of the British North American Act. It reads as follows:

In and for each province the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to education, subject and according to the following provisions:

1. Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law in the province at the union.

2. All the powers, privileges, and duties at the union by law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the separate schools and school trustees of the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, shall be and the same are hereby extended to the dissentient schools of the Queens's Protestant and Roman Catholic subjects in Quebec.

3. Where in any province a system of separate or dissentient schools exist by law at the union, or is thereafter established by the legislature of the province, an appeal shall lie to the GovernorGeneral in Council from any act or decision of any provincial authority affecting any right or privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic minority of the Queen's subjects in relation to education.

4. In case any such provincial law as from time to time seems to the Governor-General in Council requisite for the due execution of the provisions of this section is not made, or in case any decision of the Governor-General in Council on any appeal under this section is not duly executed by the proper provincial authority on that behalf, then and in every such case, and as far only as the circumstances of each case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial laws for the due execution of the provisions of this section, and of any decision of the Governor-General in Council under this section.

Thus there is under the Canadian constitution a divided sovereignty in the important subject of education, and that this is so is due to the insistence of A. T. Galt who represented the Quebec minority in the negotiations preceding confederation. Such a provision, by allowing a provincial dispute in reference to schools to be carried into the wider arena of Dominion politics, was sure to cause trouble until such time as, in practice and interpretation by the courts, the powers of the provinces and the Dominion should be accurately determined. This section applies to all the provinces of the union except Manitoba, whose charter was varied, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the case, by the insertion of a section intended to conserve minority rights just as effectually. Section 93 has protected separate schools in Ontario and Quebec. In the latter province there has not been the slightest semblance of an agitation. to abridge the privileges of the minority, who enjoy not only separate primary schools but separate high and normal schools as well. Ontario has also faithfully observed its obligations under this section, though a portion of the population chafes under these constitutional restrictions and it is not many years since one party sought to cramp and abridge, if not to abolish, minority privileges, and two provincial elections were fought on that issue with disastrous results to the party advocating that policy. Even yet occasional mutterings of discontent are heard whenever the people of a Catholic community, exercising their undoubted rights under the constitution, change a public into a separate school.

There are now in Ontario about 425 separate schools with an attendance of about 55,000 pupils, entailing an annual expenditure of over half a million dollars. In 1880 there were only 196 separate schools in Ontario, 25,311 pupils in attendance and an annual expenditure of $128,463. These figures indicate progress. In French and German districts there are bi-lingual separate schools. All separate schools are inspected by four Catholic inspectors appointed by the provincial government. The course of secular studies, the textbooks, with the exception of readers, and the qualifications of teachers, are under the control of the Minister of Education and are the same as for public schools. Members of religious orders may teach in the separate schools. At confederation it was provided that any person or class of persons then qualified to teach should continue to have that right notwithstanding any law to the contrary afterward passed by the legislature. Heretofore this has been interpreted as