Lordship, will be responded to by either section of United Canada; at least, for the sake of the peace and unity of Canada, I hope it may not.

EQUALITY OF THE PUBLIC AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS IN UPPER CANADA.

12. Then, as to the fact, which your Lordship says will be known to "the world of the Nineteenth Century," I may observe, that the Managers of the twenty-one Roman Catholic, and twenty-five Protestant, Separate Schools in Upper Canada, are placed exactly upon the same footing; that the Managers of each class of these Schools have precisely the same contro of them that the Trustees of Common Schools have over their Schools; that each class of Separate Schools and the Common Schools are under the same Official Regulations; that these relations and Regulations have existed for ten years, with the approbation of your lamented predecessor, (who was a British Colonist, by birth and education, as well as in feeling,) and with the concurrence of both Roman Catholics and Protestants; nor had I ever heard, before receiving your Lordship's Letter, that the Government and Legislature had for so many years established and maintained, and that I, in connection with the elective Municipalities of Upper Canada, had been administering and extending a system of "the most cruel and hypocritical persecution" against any portion of the community.

13. Nay, so perfect is the quality among Teachers, as well as Managers, of each class of schools, that they are all examined and classed as to intellectual attainments, by the same Board of Examination; while the Certificates of their respective Clergy are the guarantee for their Religious knowledge and character. There is perfect equality for the Teachers of Separate Roman Catholic, or Protestant, or Common, Schools; and the great principle is maintained, that no part of the School Fund raised by, or belonging to, a Municipality shall be paid to any Teacher whose qualifications are not attested by Examiners appointed by such Municipality.

ROMAN CATHOLICS ARE PROTECTED IN THEIR RIGHT OF CHOICE OF SCHOOLS.

14. It is true, that no Roman Catholic, or Protestant, can be compelled to support a Separate school, unless he applies for it, or chooses to send his children to it, and it is also true, that every Protestant, or Roman Catholic, has a right to send his children to the Public School, and also the right of equal protection to his own views in regard to the Religious instruction of his children. It is furthermore true, that no part of the money for Separate Schools is paid into the hands, or placed at the discretion, of either the Roman Catholic, or Protestant, Clergy, but is subject to the orders in each case of the elected Trustees of Separate Schools in aid of the support of Teachers employed by them. But, in each of these cases, I think the law secures individual protection and rights, rather than breathes the "most cruel and hypocritical persecution."

15. There is thus no difference whatever between Protestant, or Roman Catholic Separate, Schools and Mixed Schools, as to the examination of Teachers on the Certificates of their respective Clergy; no difference as to the times at which such Schools shall commence, and the legal conditions and Official Regulations to which they are subject; no difference as to the basis of apportioning the School Fund, to aid in the payment of the salaries of the Teachers of each class of Schools. There is, therefore, not the slightest ground for alleging "most cruel and hypocritical persecution," in regard to the one, any more than in respect to the other, class of Schools; and there are "the blessed principles of Religious Liberty, and Equal Civil Right,” in regard to them all.

WHAT WOULD BE THE EFFECT OF THE BISHOP'S TWO-FOLD DEMAND.

16. The demand which your Lordship advocates, in behalf of the Trustees of the Roman Catholic Separate Schools in the town of Chatham, is two fold :

1. That whatever sum, or sums, of money any Municipality may raise for school purposes, shall be regarded as the Legal School Fund of such Municipality, and be equally divided according to the attendance of Pupils, between the Public and Separate School.

2. That the same principle shall be applied in the expenditure of whatever moneys may be raised for the building, repairs and furnishing of School Houses; that is, that the Municipalities shall be under the same obligation to provide Separate School Houses; as Public School Houses, that they shall not be able to provide for the latter, without providing for the former.

THE NOVELTY OF THESE RECENT DEMANDS BY THE BISHOP.

17. Now, in regard to this demand, I have three remarks to make :

1. It is novel; it has never been made in any Communication to this Department, until since the commencement of the current year.

1

2. It proposes a novel interpretation of the term "School Fund." The Fortieth Section of the School Act of 1850 defines it to consist in each Municipality of "the sum of money appropriated annually by the Chief Superintendent of Education, and at least an equal sum raised by local assessment." The Twenty-seventh Section of the Act of 1850 provides, that a County Council, (and the provision is applied in another part of the Act to Cities, Towns, and Incorporated Villages), can increase, at its discretion, the sum required to be raised by local assessinent, and may apply it to increase the Local School Fund. or in giving special aid to the Schools recommended to its favourable consideration, as it may judge expedient. I have never heard it doubted before, much less complained of as a grievance, that each Municipality, after having fulfilled the conditions of the School Act, could apply, at its own discretion, any additional sum, or sums, of money it might think proper to raise for school purposes.

DEFINITION OF THE TERM "SCHOOL FUND," BEFORE THIS AGITATION BY THE BISHOP.

18. I have, in all past years, thus explained this provision of the School Act of 1850, in my Correspondence with Municipal Councils; and in my Letter addressed to the Provincial Secretary on the School Law generally, dated May 12th, 1849,* are the following words :

"The School Act authorizes any Council to raise as large an amount as it pleases for Common School purposes. I have never insisted, in regard to the Common School Fund, upon a larger sum in each District, or Township, than that apportioned to such District, or Township, out of the Legislative School Grant. Any sum over and above that amount, which a Council may think proper to raise, may, (as has been done by some Councils,) be applied in such a manner to the relief of any otherwise unprovided for poor School Sections within its jurisdiction, at the pleasure of each Council."

THERE IS NO REASON WHY THIS FORMER DEFINATION SHOULD BE ALTERED.

19. What I have regarded and averred in past years to be the plain meaning of the law, and an important right of Municipalities, and that without any view to Separate Schools, I see no reason to say, or undo, now. Besides, what the law declares to constitute the School Fund, and to whatever amount a Municipality may increase it, as in Lower Canada, can be applied to the erection, rents, or repairs, of School Houses; but both the Fortieth and Fortyfifth Sections of our School Act of 1850 expressly require that such money "shall be expended for no other purpose than that of paying the salaries of qualified Teachers of Common Schools."

THE SCHOOL FUND CANNOT BE APPLIED TO THE BUILDING OF SCHOOL HOUSES. 20. I remark further, that as no apportionment from the Legislative School Grant, or School Fund, is made, and, as no part of such fund, can be applied, for the erection, rent, repairs, or furnishing, of School Houses of any description, all sums expended for these purposes in any Municipality must be specially raised by local voluntary assessment, or subscription, in such Municipality.

MUNICIPAL RIGHT IS A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE SCHOOL LAW.

21. The principle of the School Law of 1850 is, that each Municipality has a right to do what it pleases with its own; that is, with what it does not receive from the Legislature; what it is not required to raise as a condition of receiving Legislative aid, but what it voluntarily provides of itself, within its own jurisdiction.

VIOLATION OF MUNICIPAL RIGHTS IS INVOLVED IN THE BISHOP'S NEW DEMANDS.

22. But, if according to your Lordship's advocacy, a Municipality must be compelled to tax themselves to provide Separate School Houses for Religious Persuasions, in addition to Public School Houses, there may be a high degree of "civil liberty' "secured to certain Religious Persuasions, but a melancholy slavery is imposed upon the Municipalities. The liberty of teaching, any more than the liberty of preaching, by any Religious Persuasion, has never been understood in Upper Canada to mean the right of compelling Municipalities to provide places of teaching, any more than places of preaching, for such Religious Persuasions. Such liberty, or rather such despotic authority, possessed by any Religious Persuasion, is the grave of the public Municipal liberties of Upper Canada.

VINDICATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS OF UPPER CANADA AND ITS PEOPLE.

23. Your Lordship has furthermore been pleased to designate Upper Canada, the Country of my birth and warmest affections,-as this Sectarian Country; -a term which

* This Letter will be fo nd on pages 225-230 of the Eighth Volume of this Documentary History.

not merely implies the existence of sectarianism, (for that exists in Austria and Italy, as well as in Upper Canada,) but that such is the distinguishing character of the Country, as we are accustomed to say an enlightened, a civilized, or a barbarous, Country, according to the prevailing character of its Institutions and inhabitants. I think your Lordship's designation of Upper Canada is an unmerited imputation; I am persuaded that a large majority of the people are as firm believers in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," and in all that our Lord and His Apostles taught as necessary to everlasting salvation, as either your Lordship, or myself. A standard English lexicographer has defined "sect" to be "a party in Religion which holds tenets different from those of the prevailing Denominations in a Kingdom, or State," and Becherelle, in his noble "Dictionnaire National," says, after Linguet, that "De toutes les sectes, il n'en est pas de plus furieuses, de plus intolérantes, de plus injustes, que celles qui choississent pour cri de guère la religion et la liberté.” But I see no application of either of these characteristics of sectarians to the majority of the people whom your Lordship reproaches,a people, in religious morals, in honesty, industry, in enterprise, in the first and essential elements of a nation's civilization, in advance of the people of those very States of Italy, to the Schools of whose capital you have drawn my attention.

REMARKS ON THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF EDUCATION IN UPPER CANADA.

24. Your Lordship has represented "God as unknown to our Schools as He was in Athens;" and by the passages of the Scriptures, which you have quoted as well as by your remarks upon our School Regulation, you intimate that I place Earth before Heaven, and the gain of the world before the loss of the soul. I remark, that I believe a majority of the Members of the Council of Public Instruction, by whom the Regulations were made for our Schools in regard to Religious and Moral Instruction, are as deeply impressed with the worth and the value of Heaven, as your Lordship; and so far from God being "unknown to our Schools," the authorized Version of His inspired Word, (the text book of the Religious Faith of a large majority of the people of Upper Canada,) is read in two thousand and sixty seven, out of three thousand of these Schools.

THE BISHOP MAY PROPOSE AMENDMENTS TO THE COUNCIL'S GENERAL REGULATIONS.

25. And if the Regulations are criminally defective in this respect, your Lordship, as a Member of the Council of Public Instruction, has had, and still has, ample opportunity to propose their correction and amendment.

PARENTS AND CHURCHES SHOULD PROVIDE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION FOR THE CHILDREN.*

26. Though I have perhaps learned, by personal observation and enquiry, more of both Irish and Canadian Schools than your Lordship, and am not sensible of the vast inferiority of Canadian Schools, of which you speak; yet, if such be the fact, in a Religious point of view, the fault must lie with the Clergy throughout the Country, and not in the Regulations, since our Regulations are borrowed from those which have operated so benefically in Ireland. Who is to provide for, and look after, the Religious Instruction of the youth of the land, but the Clergy and the Churches? Government was certainly not established to be the censor and shepherd of Religious Persuasions and their Clergy, or to perform their duties. I lament that the Clergy and Religious Persuasions of Upper Canada have not been more attentive to the Religious Instruction of youth,-the youth of the land—; but, as to our youth and fellowcountrymen in Upper Canada not being taught to respect law and authority, as in the Schools of Rome, I may observe that authority and law are maintained among us by the people themselves, without our Capital being occupied by Foreign armies to keep the citizens from expelling their Sovereign from the Throne.

THE BISHOP'S PICTURE OF CONTROVERSIAL WORKS IN SCHOOLS IS AN IMAGINARY ONE.

27. Your Lordship draws a vivid picture of each of the children in a School being taught from a Book abusing the Religion of the parents of the other children. I have only to remark on this point, that the picture exists in your Lordship's imagination alone, as there is no foundation for it, in fact, or probability.

THE CHURCH CATECHISMS DO NOT ABUSE RELIGIOUS PERSUASIONS.

28. Even should the Teacher hear the children separately recite, once a week, the Catechisms of their Religious Persuasions, as he would hear them recite a fact in history, or a rule in Arithmetic, (without any regard to the merits of it), what your Lordship fancies could not

See the forcible remarks of the Chief Superintendent on this subject, in his Annual Report for 1851, on pages 33-37 of this Volume.

occur even in this strongest case that can be put, as the Catechism of no Religious Persuasion, as far as I know, consists in abusing other Religious persuasions; but, is only a summary of Christian faith and duty professed by its adherents. I know not of the occurrence of a case such as your Lordship has imagined in all Upper Canada during the last ten years; and down to a recent period an increasingly friendly feeling and co-operation existed between Roman Catholics and Protestants, -a feeling which I had hoped, and had reason to believe, until within the last twelve months, would have been promoted by your Lordship, as it was by your honoured predecessor, Bishop Power.

SPECIAL INFORMATION OF INTERFERENCE WITH RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE SHOULD BE REPORTED

29. Your Lordship says, that "Catholics are forced in certain Schools to read from Religious Books, to which their parents object;" but why are not the names of the places and parties mentioned? For I can promise your Lordship a prompt and effective remedy in every case, which shall be made known to this Department.

THE SPECIAL CASE OF THE GEORGETOWN COMMON SCHOOL TRUSTEES.

30. But, it appears to me, that if such cases exist, they would be made known, from the great importance and publicity which has been given to the case of Mr. Maurice Carroll, and the School Trustees at Georgetown, in the Township of Esquesing, the only case of the kind that was ever brought under the notice of this Department; and on the very day I received Mr. Carroll's letter of complaint, I answered it in strong terms of condemnation, as to the proceedings of the Trustees, and in maintenance of his supremacy and inviolable right in regard to the attendance, or non-attendance, of his children upon Religious Exercises in the School. A day or two afterwards, I repeated the same decision and views to the Teacher and Trustees concerned, and there the matter has ended; and it would have been the occasion of no bad feelings beyond the School Section itself, had not the complaining parties, according to the advice of your Lordship, previously spread it abroad in the Newspapers, instead of at first appealing to the tribunal authorized by law to decide on such matters,-recourse being open to the Judges of the land, and to the Governor-General-in-Council, should I fail in impartiality and energy in remedying the wrong complained of.

THE BISHOP'S TEACHING AND PRACTICE IN REGARD TO "RESPECT TOWARD AUTHORITY."

31. And I must appeal to your Lordship, and, especially after your Lordship has spoken so decidedly of "respect towards Authority, Law and Government not being taught in our Schools;" whether it was promoting either of these objects for your Lordship to encourage Mr. Maurice Carroll of Georgetown to go to the Newspapers, instead of to the legal authorities, to remedy a legal wrong,-to appeal to popular passion and Religious animosities, instead of first appealing to this Department, or to the Government, and exhausting the resources provided by law for legal protection against illegal oppression?

EFFECT OF THE GENERAL OPERATION OF BISHOP DE CHARBONNEL'S PRACTICE IN THIS CASE.

32. Should the examples and counsels, which your Lordship has given to Mr. Maurice Carroll, be adopted by all parties throughout the land, in regard to any alleged wrong that may be committed by one party against another, what respect for law would there be? What administration of law could there be? What must be the social state of the Country other than that of unbridled passion, lawlessness and anarchy? On a matter of so much importance to the social happiness and best interests of all classes of people in Upper Canada. I confidently appeal from your Lordship, under excitement, to your Lordship when calm and thoughtful.

THE MIXED CHARACTER OF GUIZOT'S FRENCH SCHOOL SYSTEM.

33. Your Lordship has called my attention to the authority of Guizot, as much better than mine in school matters. I readily acknowledge the authority of that great French Statesman and Educationist. I read his projects for School Laws in France, and his various Circulars to Local School Authorities at the time he was French Minister of Public Instruction, before I prepared my own projects and Circulars; and, when I found under his system, a Roman Catholic Priest, a Protestant Minister and a Jewish Rabbi, in connection with several laymen, composing and acting harmoniously in each of the Educational Committees, -answering to our County Boards,-I did not imagine that a School System based on the same principle, could be regarded as a "most cruel and hypocritical persecution," by either a Protestant, or Roman Catholic, in Upper Canada.

SCHOOLS IN ROME.-"RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY."-OBJECTS OF EDUCATION.

34. Then your Lordship cites to me the testimony of the "Scotch Presbyterian, Laing," in regard to the number of Schools in Rome, and their tendency to promote respect to established

uthority. I have no wish to question the correctness of the conclusion, which your Lordship would wish to establish by these references, much less to disparage the Schools alluded to, many of which I have personally visited and found them admirably conducted, and well adapted to the purpose for which they were established. But, I must say, that I do not consider respect for existing authority to be the sole object of education, or of the establishment and multiplication of Schools for the mass of the people. Of course, the more energetically such an object is promoted, in both Austria and Italy, and in all despotic Countries, the more effectually will Schools and Education be employed as an instrument of despotism. I think Education and Schools fail to fulfil a vital part of their mission if they do not develope all the intellectual powers of man, teach him self-reliance, as well as dependence on God, excite him to industry and enterprise, and instruct him in the rights, as well as duties, of man.

WHAT MAY BE REGARDED AS THE RESULTS OF EDUCATION IN ITALY AND SCOTLAND.

35. That the numerous Schools of Rome and Roman Italy fail in several of these particulars, notwithstanding their efficiency in other respects, is manifest from the proverbial indolence, dishonesty, poverty and misery of the mass of the people, notwithstanding its genial climate, the fertility of the soil, and the glory of its ancient historical recollections, while hyperborean Scotland, with its mountain heaths and glens, stands, by the united testimony of travellers and historians, as far above modern Italy in all the elements of the intellectual and moral grandeur of man, as it is below it in beauty of climate and richness of soil. And this difference may be largely traced to the different Systems of Education in the Schools and Colleges of the two Countries.

THERE ARE BAYONETS IN ROME, BUT LOYALTY IN EDINBURGH.

39. Your Lordship will recollect that Laing wrote before 1848, and with a view to prompt his fellow-countrymen to still greater efforts in the cause of Popular Education. Since Laing wrote, there has been a Revolution at Rome, and the very City, the streets of which were studded with Schools, expelled its Sovereign, and, at this day, is only kept in subjection to the existing authority, by the Bayonets of France and Austria; while Edinburgh maintains an inviolable and spontaneous allegiance to its Sovereign, as deep in its Religious convictions as it is fervent in its patriotic impulses. I think it right to say this much, in reply to your Lordship's reference to Scotland, although I have no connection with that Country by natural birth, or confession of faith.

THE REASON OF THIS DEFENCE AGAINST THE NEW EDUCATION CRUSADE.

I have thus not rendered myself liable to blame for having passed over in silence any one of the many topics which your Lordship has thought proper to introduce; but I have carefully noticed each of them, in a belief that your Lordship entertains defective and erroneous views of the School System and Municipal Institutions of Upper Canada; with a desire of placing before you the whole question in its present and probable future bearings, before your Lordship shall enter upon the course indicated in your Letter; and from a sense of duty to successive Administrations and Parliaments that have established our Common School System, and to the Municipalities and people at large, who have so nobly sustained it, as well as from a deep consciousness of personal responsibility in this matter, for the future well-being and destinies of my native land.

TORONTO, 24th April, 1852.

EGERTON RYERSON.

VI. Letter from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, to the Chief Superintendent of Education, dated Toronto, May 1st, 1852, stating more fully in French, the views expressed in his former Letters, written in English.

(NOTE. The following are the titles of the remaining Letters and Papers in this Separate School Return to the House of Assembly.)

VII. Translation of the foregoing French Letter into English.

VIII. Letter from the Chief Superintendent of Education, to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, dated May 12th, 1852, in reply to the foregoing.

IX. Note from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, to the Chief Superintendent of Education, dated May 22nd, 1852, acdnowledging the receipt of the foregoing Letter, as the conclusion of the Correspondence with the Head of the Educational Department.

X. Letter from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, to the Chairman of the Council of Public Instruction for Upper Canada, dated May 26th, 1852, on the subject of the Correspondence with the Chief Superintendent of Education for Upper Canada.