The negation of this principle leads to the State paternalism which stands for the interference of State in matters which by right belong to the individual and the family.  Never has State interference and State protection been more exaggerated than they are nowadays.  The passing and pressing emergencies of the great war have accentuated these tendencies.  The nations have kept the habit of being governed by orders-in-council, by arbitrary censorship and dictatorial methods.  “The Executive has usurped the functions that rightly belong to the legislative assembly, with a virtual dictatorship as the inevitable result.”  The consequence of State Paternalism is the death of individual liberty either through socialism or autocracy.  Man becomes the chattel of a bureaucratic government.

Of all civil liberties there is none more sacred, more fundamental than that of education.  The freedom of education means the right of a parent to give to his offspring an education in harmony with his concept of life, with the dictates of his conscience.  As education is nothing but a preparation for life, its theory goes hand in hand with the theory of life.  To this liberty of the parent should correspond in society a political right.  To deprive a free citizen of this right is to penalize him and oblige him—­as is the case in Manitoba—­to buy twice over a right of conscience.  This condition wherever it exists is a flagrant abuse of political authority and consequently a social disorder.

Some may object to our argumentation and answer that in a modern democracy the majority rules, and the majority in the West are against “separate schools.”  The political right of the majority cannot cancel a moral right of the minority.  It is a case here of repeating the statement of Burke:  “The tyranny of a democracy is the most dangerous of all tyrannies because it allows no appeal against itself.”  This autocracy of numbers is often more dangerous and more brutal than that of a caste, of a czar, or of a king.  Russia is giving us an illustration of this autocracy of number.  Did not Germany use the same argument to crush Belgium and to try to dominate the World?  Our sons have fought and died in this war against Prussianism and yet some of our Canadians—­not worthy of the name—­would willingly vote drastic measures of governmental repression which would make the Kaiser smile and the Czar Nicholas turn in his grave.  The velvet glove may cover the mail-fist, but the blow is the same.

Others may claim that the State has a right to “Uniformity in the education of its citizens.”  This is the pretension of those who now are advocating so strongly and so widely the “federalization of our schools.”  We will not discuss the value of this plea for uniformity.  It would open a very interesting pedagogical debate and we are inclined to believe that the “anti-uniformists” would carry away the honors.  We do not pretend that the State has no rights in matters of education.  But its interference should be consistent with the prior and more fundamental rights of the individual and the family and not become a usurpation or abrogation of them.  Otherwise it would be the wrong way of doing the right thing.