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It is not necessary that the teacher should be called upon to explain such words as "debauchery," "licentiousness," etcetera. The narration that Nero murdered his wife Octavia, so that he might marry an infamous woman named Poppoa, whom he afterwards kicked to death, is only calculated to call up improper images, and 'can serve no instructive purpose.

The Canadian Text Books on Arithmetic, Geography and Canadian History, are national productions, and worthy guides in the hands of the Common School Teacher; but the Irish Readers are, for the reasons set forth, in the opinion of your Memorialists, (having fulfilled long since the purpose of their creation), fit only to be placed among things obsolete and of a past age.

BERLIN, 26th June, 1865.

HENRY F. J. JACKSON, Chairman of the Board.

X. REPLY TO THE FOREGOING BY THE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION.

In reply to your Letter of the 7th of August, addressed to the Honourable S. B. Harrison, and transferred by him to this Department, communicating a printed Memorial from the Board of Public Instruction for the County of Waterloo, I have the honour to state, that the said Memorial was laid before the Council of Public Instruction for Upper Canada, and respecting which the Council adopted the following Minute:.

The Council purposes, with as little delay as possible, to adopt the best means within its power to get the series of National Readers revised, and better adapted to our Canadian Schools.-when due consideration will be given to the remarks and suggestions of the Board of Public Instruction for the County of Waterloo. EGERTON RYERSON.

TORONTO, February, 1865.

XI. MR. J. L. BOWMAN, M.P., OF WATERLOO, NORTH RIDING, TO DOCTOR RYERSON.

At the last Meeting of the Board of Public Instruction for the County of Waterloo, of which I am a Member, I was requested to put myself in communication with you. with a view of securing your co-operation in favour of several amendments to the Common School Act, which, in the opinion of the Board, would prove of great advantage to our Common Schools.

The various Members of our Board find that most of the married Teachers in this County relinquish the profession as soon as they can obtain other suitable employment, on account of the difficulty, or I may say impossibility, of obtaining a Residence within a reasonable distance from the School House. For instance, in the Township of North Dumfries, four, or five, of the best Teachers live with their families in the Town of Galt, and walk a dstance of from three to five miles, each day to and from the Schools. These Teachers would gladly live in small dwellings of almost any kind, rather than walk such a distance into the Country. Again, in the Township of Woolwich, for which I am Local Superintendent, there are but two married Teachers, one of whom has his residence at Waterloo Village, about twelve miles from his School, and the other lives in a miserable old Log Building, unfit for being the residence of any family. In our opinion, (videlicet: the Board,) the want of proper Teachers' residences throughout the Country is the principal reason why so many Teachers desert the Profession as soon as they have gained the requisité experience to become good and efficient Instructors.

Another difficulty, which often gives rise to much inconvenience, is the absolute refusal, or unwillingness, of Persons owning the land in the centre of the Section to sell a suitable plot of ground at a reasonable price for a School Site. It sometimes happens that when the Ratepayers of a Section decide to erect a new School House, after selecting the Site, the owner of the Land asks five, or six, times as much as it is worth, and the Section has no alternative but, either to pay an exorbitant price for a piece of land, or to put the School House at one end of the Section, to the serious inconvenience of the Ratepayers at the other end.

The Members of our Board are, therefore, of the opinion that the Common School Act should be so amended as to give the Trustees of a School Section authority to purchase a suitable plot of ground and to erect thereon a suitable Dwelling adjoining the School House, to serve as a Teacher's residence, without referring the matter specially to the Rate-payers.

And further, we think that the said Act should also be so amended as to authorize the Trustees of a School Section to arbitrate, in case they cannot agree with the owner as to the price of the land selected for a School Site, the same as Railway Companies are now empowered to do.

Hoping that you will consent, either to assist me with your influence to secure the passage of a Bill in the Legislature, providing for the above amendment, or that you will induce the Government to take it up.

QUEBEC, August 10th, 1865.

J. L. BOWMAN.

NOTE. The Letter, having been sent to Doctor Ryerson, while on his Vacation at Long Point, Lake Erie, he replied to it from there; but no copy of his reply is available for insertion in this Volume.

CHAPTER XLIV.

REMARKS ON THE NEW SEPARATE SCHOOL AGITATION, BY THE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, IN THREE PARTS.

SPECIAL NOTE.-Each successive Separate School Law agitation in Upper Canada, during fifteen years, has been commenced by attacks upon the Education Department and Separate School Law for the time being. On another renewal of these attacks and agitations, I have felt it due to the Supporters of our School System to furnish at once materials for refuting the statements put forth, for showing the unreasonableness of the demands made, and to suggest the only true course of further legislation on the subject, if further be required.*

Such is the object of the following remarks, and to which I respectfully invite the attention of the Upper Canada Members of the Legislature, as also of the Conductors of the Public Press, who, I hope, will make such use of my remarks, for insertion, or otherwise, as they may think proper, for the information of their Readers.

TORONTO, February, 1865.

EGERTON RYERSON.

PART I.

REFUTATION OF STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE PROVISIONS OF THE SEPARATE SCHOOL ACT, OF 1863, MADE BY THE CANADIAN (R. C.) FREEMAN AND MR. JAMES O'REILLY, RECORDER OF THE CITY OF KINGSTON.

I will first remark upon the specific attacks, or objections, which have been made against the Separate School Law itself. The Freeman, published in Toronto, refers to no clauses of the Act, but represents the case of the Town of Oakville, which, he says, "tells how the Separate School Act of 1863 works, and how bigotry and injustice conspire to baffle and frustrate the paltry concessions to Catholics which it embraces." In a recent Letter. I have shown that The Freeman's statement of that case was without

*This I deem to be more necessary just now as a formal agitation for the extension of the Roman Catholic Separate School System has been inaugurated in various parts of Upper Canada. Already influential Meetings of Roman Catholics, to promote this object, have been held in Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa, Perth, and other important Towns, and Resolutions of a more sweeping character than usual passed unanimously.

+ See Letter in the Toronto Leader, of February the 13th, 1865, on the first page of the next Volume.

the slightest foundation, and was a scandalous misrepresentation from beginning to end, and that the case of Oakville itself afforded an admirable illustration of the liberality of the law and the facility with which that liberality could be secured in any doubtful

case.*

The only other party in Upper Canada, as far as I have seen, who has undertaken to specify the objectionable provisions of this Act, is Mr. James O'Reilly, a Roman Catholic Lawyer, and Recorder of the City of Kingston, at a Public Meeting of Roman Catholics held in that City the 2nd instant, and as Mr. O'Reilly is put forward as the highest legal authority on the subject, and as his Speech, after having been published in the Kingston papers, has been copied with eulogies into the Roman Catholic newspapers of Toronto and Montreal, I will deal with his statements a little in detail.†

Mr. O'Reilly says, "he had carefully perused and studied the Act." I am sure no one who understands the Act would have suspected Mr. O'Reilly of having "studied” it, had he not said so; and it is certain if he has not "studied" other Acts of Parliament with more discernment and thoroughness than he has this, his opinion on any legal question cannot be of much value. He says, (referring to the Separate School Act of 1863):

This much vaunted Separate School Act was but a sham and a fraud. It professed to restore certain rights and privileges which it does not restore. Previous to the passing of this Act, Roman Catholics in Upper Canada had the privilege of establishing Separate Schools in Upper Canada, a privilege not at all extended, but on the contrary abridged by the passing of the Act of 1863. The Act says that Catholics can establish Separate Schools wherever Common Schools are established, but the 19th Section of the Act defining School Sections, completely frustrates this intention. They possessed greater privileges before, and were deprived of their previous liberty by the 19th The 19th Section of the Act of 1863 utterly destroyed the union of School Municipalties.

I have thus quoted Mr. O'Reilly's own reported words, that there may be no mistake; and any one who has really "studied" the Separate School Act of 1863, in connection with the Common School Act, and the previous Separate School Acts, must see that his statements exhibit a want of knowledge, or candor, wholly inexcusable. Now, in the first place, the 19th Section of the School Act of 1850 does not define School Sections at all, but they are defined by the 2nd and 4th Sections of the Act, and are defined to be precisely the same as the Common School Sections in which the Separate Schools are established. This is precisely as was provided for by the Separate School Act of 1855. Before that time, the Township Councils defined the boundaries of Separate School Sections as they did those of Common School Sections. They had to include all Roman Catholics who petitioned for a Separate School, but could extend the boundaries of a Separate School Section to include two, or more, Common School Sections, or half a Township, if they thought proper; but Bishop de Charbonnel and others objected to a Township Council having anything to do with Separate Schools, and insisted that Separate School Sections should be the same as Common School Sections. Their wishes were gratified by the provisions of the Separate School Act of 1855; and those provisions are reproduced in the Separate School Act of 1863. Yet Mr. O'Reilly has the assurance to say that this Act takes away that privilege,- -a statement disproved by every Separate School that exists in any Township of Upper Canada.

Again, the 5th Section of the Act provides that, instead of a Separate School Corporation in each Ward of a City, or Town, as the Act of 1855 necessitated, all the Separate School Trustees in each City, or Town, shall form one Board, or Corporation, as simply and with as few Members as the Board of Trustees of Common Schools; and the 5th Section was suggested and written by myself, as was the latter part of the 13th Section, namely, 'that Persons qualified by law as Teachers either in Upper or Lower Canada, shall be considered qualified Teachers for the purposes of this Act." These two * See Letter on the Oakville Case on page 13 of the next Volume.

† See Letters to the Kingston papers in reply to Mr. O'Reilly, on page 6 of the next Volume. 20 D.E.

provisions never existed in any previous Separate School Act; and yet Mr. O'Reilly tells his wondering Kingston audience that this Act abridges the privileges which Catholics had enjoyed under the previous Act!

Furthermore, the 6th Section of the Act provides for the union of two, or more, Separate School Sections into one, (which was not before provided for,) precisely as the Common School Act provides for the union of two, or more, Common School Sections into one; but with this difference, that the Trustees and Electors of Common School Sections have to apply to the Township Council to give effect to their wishes, while the Trustees and Electors of Separate School Sections complete their union themselves, and are only required to give notice of it when formed. Yet this again, Mr. O'Reilly calls abridging the privileges of Roman Catholics!

But Mr. O'Reilly tells his confiding hearers that the 19th Section of the Act destroys all these privileges. He does not seem to have read to them the 19th Section, any more than the other Sections of the Act above referred, even if he had "studied" it. Now, as to this 19th Section, I neither wrote it, nor suggested it, nor ever thought of it until I saw it in a printed copy of Mr. Scott's Bill. But no other than a man of Mr. O'Reilly's habits of legal study and interpretation would say that this Section destroys union School Sections, much less that it can interfere with a single School Section. This 19th Section of the Act provides that "no person shall be deemed a supporter of any Separate School unless he resides within three miles, (in a direct line,) of the Site of the School House." Any man of common sense, much more a jurist, will at once see from this clause of the Act, that any Separate School division must be six miles in diameter, or eighteen miles in circumference,-dimensions beyond those of any Common School Section, or union of Sections, that I know of in all Upper Canada. But this is not all, any Roman Catholic residing within three miles on a straight line of any Separate School, may, without any union of Sections, claim to be a supporter of such School and be exempted from all Common School Rates in whatever Section he may reside—a privilege enjoyed by no Supporter of Common Schools. And any Roman Catholic residing within three miles, in a straight line, of a Separate School House in Kingston, or Belleville, or Toronto, or Hamilton, or of any other City, Town, or Village, in Upper Canada, can send his children to the Separate School in such City, Town, or Village, can claim to be a Supporter of it, and be exempt from payment of all Common School Rates in the Section in which he resides; whereas no Supporters of Common Schools, out of the Corporation limits of any such City, Town, or Village, can enjoy such an advantage, but hundreds of them have to pay rates to build School Houses and support Schools in the Sections where they reside, and they pay high Fees to get their children taught in the better Schools of the neighbouring City, Town, or Village. Yet, in the presence of these facts, Mr. O'Reilly declares that the privileges of Roman Catholics have been abridged by this 19th Section, and that the Act itself is "a sham and a fraud;" whereas the only "sham and fraud” in the matter are his own Speech and his own pretensions,a sorry illustration of his acumen, impartiality and fitness for the office of City Recorder. These are the only provisions of the Act which Mr. O'Reilly specifies as abridging the privileges of Roman Catholics. But he says:

"There were other good grounds of complaint and grievance against the existing School Bill, and which ought to be amended. For instance-Roman Catholics having property in School Sections, where they did not reside, were taxed for Common School purposes, although paying Separate Taxes in another Section. He considered this a very great hardship, and one which nothing but further and better legislation could alter, or amend. The law was more liberal to Protestants in Lower Canada than to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada. There (in Lower Canada) Protestants can establish Separate Schools in Township Municipalties. but Roman Catholics could not do so in Upper Canada."

The Letter addressed by me to the Superintendent of Education for Lower Canada, (given on page 197 herewith), will shew that Mr. O'Reilly is as perfectly ignorant of the School Law there, as I have above shown him to be in regard to the School Law of Upper Canada.

Now, his grievance about Roman Catholics paying School Rates for the support of Schools in which their property is situate, is one that I have never before heard uttered by any advocate of Separate Schools. It is a new grievance, and founded on ignorance of one of the first principles of political economy and just legislation, as his other objections above noticed are founded on ignorance, or misrepresentation of statute law. The very basis of a System of Public Instruction for the education of a whole people is, that the property of a Country ought to be responsible for the education of its youth. This principle, applicable to a whole Country,-and the only one on which a System of Public Instruction can be justified, or maintained,—is equally applicable to each Municipality, or School Section in the Country. It is the joint labour of the youth and their parents in such Municpality that gives to the property situated in it its current value, and to which the absentee landholder contributes nothing. Now these resident Parents and their children are entitled in common justice to some return for the additional value which their labours and intelligence give, or maintain, to the property of the absentee land holder; and how can that return be so equitably and moderately and beneficially made to them for the benefit of such labours, as to make it liable to be rated for the education of those youth? It is not a question between a Common School and a Separate School, but a question of equity between man and man, and a question involving one of the cardinal principles of political economy and of just government. The doctrine of Mr. O'Reilly that would extract the fruit of the unrequited sweat and toil of the inhabitants of a School Section to support a School foreign to the Section is worthy of the cause he advocates is unrecognized in regard to all the other absentee property holders in respect to the Common Schools of the Country,-is the very spirit of that system of absenteeism which draws from Ireland the chiefest fruits of its labourers to minister to the tastes and pleasures of absentee proprietors abroad.

I think, therefore, and the reader will agree with me, that the patriotism of Mr. O'Reilly's advocacy is worthy of as little respect as that of his law, and not creditable to him as a jurist, or Canadian.

Mr. O'Reilly having given the result of his studies on what the Separate School Act contains, proceeds to complain of what it does not contain. It did not provide for a Roman Catholic Superintendent of Education, or a Roman Catholic Council of Public Instruction, or a Roman Catholic Normal School, while there was a Protestant Normal School in Lower Canada.—a three-fold demand for the first time formally made in Upper Canada. On the first I shall say nothing. On the second, I shall only say here that the Roman Catholic Church is represented in the person of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Toronto, in the Council of Public Instruction, and when any thing is required in the General Regulations, or is sanctioned in the proceedings of that Council revolting to his conscience or to his sense of right or duty, it is time enough for Mr. O'Reilly to talk of another Council of Public Instruction. I may also observe, that under the former Separate School Act, as demanded, every Roman Catholic Board of School Trustees was a Committee to examine and qualify Teachers of Separate Schools,-a provision which reduced almost to contempt the standing of Teachers of those Schools, and was changed in the present Act at the express wish of its Authors. Then there are three Normal Schools in Lower Canada,-instead of one,-although there are only two-thirds as many Common Schools there as in Upper Canada,-two in French to satisfy the rivalry between Quebec and Montreal, and one in English, to meet the wants of the English speaking population. As there are no materials in the French language for any other than a Roman Catholic Normal School; so there are not sufficient materials in the English language for any other than a Protestant Normal School, although, under the oversight of a Roman Catholic Superintendent. In Upper Canada, there is but one language, and one Normal School,-giving secular instruction, and setting apart a portion of one day in each week for Religious Instruction, where there is a room for the Clergymen of each Religious Persuasion to meet and instruct the Students of his Church, and where the Roman Catholic Priest can weekly meet and instruct those of his own communion, as

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