in other words, to be broadly and truly National. But stupid parents did not like the idea of their children going to "common" schools, and associating with common children, so the name, with its grand significance, was sacrificed to that vulgar snobbishness which is just as rampant in democracies as elsewhere. These fastidious Australians would, I presume, had they been consulted, have changed the "Book of Common Prayer" into the "Volume of Polite Supplication;" and the "House of Commons," translated into their nomenclature, would have become the "Assembly of Genteels." Let us, however, pass on from the mere name to the thing itself. In my opinion, the full justification, as well as the immediate cause, of the free, secular, and compulsory system of public education now in vogue in Australia, is the hostile attitude assumed by the Roman Catholic clergy towards the rest of the community, as shown by their persistent efforts to isolate and divide their flocks from it. From time to time the leading Roman Catholic prelates of Australia have fulminated against what are called "mixed marriages!" but, whatever the evil of these mixed marriages may be, it is quite evident that unless they take place there can never
