The youthfulness of the country has left its mark on the character of the Westerner.  There is something of the vastness of the prairie in his mind.  He is generally broad, and boasts of it most willingly.  This trait is very noticeable in his passion to revaluate theories, to redefine notions brought from the East.  The great success with which he has met in various co-operative schemes has also developed in him a high sense of self-reliance.  The only danger is that he carries that same self-assurance into domains where he often over-reaches himself.  This fact is very noticeable in the various annual Conventions.  Unconsciously, in matters beyond his grasp, he is at the mercy of a few leaders.  Resolutions are passed, legislation is suggested, without realization of their consequences.

The rapid disintegration of Protestantism is another factor with which the Church can count.  Church union is in many places an accomplished fact.  This alone is a convincing proof of the want of grasp, of definiteness that exists in religious matters.  We would refer our reader to the Chapter “Ploughing the Sands.”  To what extent this rather negative disposition will hasten the spreading of the true Faith, is difficult to state.  Will it, as is evident in England, promote a movement of return to the Church or accentuate, as in the United States, indifference and unbelief, the future alone can tell.  But, is it not our duty in the meantime to make use of every tide and wind to bring the ship to port?  The tide, as it is now running, shall bring to the Church many a shipwrecked soul.

This is our firm belief.

This rapid survey of Western conditions in their relation with the Church, without being a searching examination, outlines, as it were, the actual religious topography of our new Provinces.  Our sole ambition is to help to wipe away, in our work, useless curves, make easier the grades and map out the straightest and most direct route to success.  With the knowledge of conditions, less energy will be lost and more time will be gained.  Time and energy are the necessary factors of true and permanent progress.

[1] “Catholics to a certain extent will remain an alien body.  We differ from those around us in a profound fashion, not in matters of direct doctrine, for which the modern world has largely ceased to care, but in the effects of that doctrine.  The Catholic’s whole conception of man and of the fundamentals of human life is a different thing from that held by those about us.”—­H.  Belloc.

PART II

EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS

“To-day’s boy is to-morrow’s man.”

CHAPTER VIII.

WHY SEPARATE?[1]

A Moral Reason—­A Social Reason—­A Political Reason—­A National Reason—­A British Reason—­A Historical Reason—­A Religious Reason—­For “Separate Schools."