SURVEY OF THE EARLY SEVENTIES 165 



impossible to have religious teaching which was not sectarian, and 

 that the Christianity which was common to all the sects could not be 

 taught ! The predominance of this feeling determined Mr. Francis 

 to use it as a means of ensuring popular support for his Ministry, 

 and incidentally justifying the expulsion from office of Duffy. 

 Feeling ran high, and as both Protestants and Eoman Catholics 

 were working to maintain the ecclesiastical grip, it was decided 

 to formulate a measure which should appeal to the masses, sup- 

 posed in the majority to be actively hostile to the Churches. The 

 contentious strife which the proposal engendered was not confined 

 to the period involved in passing the Act. Year after year, since it 

 was placed on the Statute book, has produced criticism, comment 

 and denunciation with unstinted profusion. Sermons, leading 

 articles, hundreds of pages of debates, pastoral addresses and en- 

 cyclicals poured forth their dolorous prophecies of impending moral 

 decadence. The air was darkened with pamphlets filled with 

 arguments which no man heeded. A generation has passed away 

 since, and the contention is not yet stilled, though the hopelessness 

 of any change has modified its volume. 



The Education Act, largely based on the rejected measure of 

 Higinbotham and a subsequent proposal of McCulloch's, was 

 credited to Mr. J. W. Stephen, the Attorney-General, and it tended 

 to make him for a time a hero with the masses. For in 1870 there 

 was in that quarter a widespread opinion that the clergy as a class 

 were enemies of popular education. Probably the opinion, or 

 rather prejudice, was ill-founded, but the working man is invari- 

 ably suspicious of opposition, and too generally attributes it to 

 reasons such as would be likely to influence himself. It is easy to 

 understand how Mr. Stephen's popularity grew. Here was a man, 

 hitherto prominent as a churchman, falling foul of the traditions 

 of his class, and demanding that at least the elements of education 

 should be ensured to every child in the colony. To make it uni- 

 versal it must be compulsory : being compulsory it must be free, 

 to avoid the appearance of pauperising any section of the people ; 

 and secular, to avoid the clash of sectarian discord. Schools were 

 to be provided in every district throughout the colony ; a Depart- 

 ment of Education, presided over by a Minister responsible to 



