building at the very beginning. We are not a homogeneous people. So great in numbers is the Irish minority that we are veritably two races. On the matter of religion, we have been compelled to organise the State on a basis of indifference—so various and antagonistic are the religious divisions of the people.
To come now to the question of the national systems of education in Australia, I would point out that the present unsectarian or non-religious system has simply superseded the old "denominational" or religious system which was first tried in all the colonies and, judged by the test of the ballot-box, pronounced a dismal and universal failure. I can speak from personal experience of the denominational system in Victoria, before the passing of Mr. Wilberforce Stephen's Education Act. Whilst the general run of the Protestant schools were fairly efficient, and assisted in some measure to fit the future citizen to play his part in a free and, what should therefore be, an enlightened community, the Roman Catholic schools were universally acknowledged to be the worst in the land. I have known pious parents of that faith constantly in danger of the priestly ban for the crime of removing their children from their own schools, where their education was being ne-
