Let our school system, the source of light and intelligence, be destroyed, and what remains to us of hope for the country? They, as it were, would go gradually back to the darkness of ignorance and superstition. We shall consider no institution safe from priestly encroachments if this Bill is carried. There is no point upon which the people of Upper Canada can be more severely wounded than their common schools. Every true patriot has fondly looked to them as the safeguards against the despotism of priestcraft, and against violence of an ignorant and, therefore, vicious populace. If they are sacrificed, if their noble endowment is scattered among the sects, frittered away on a dozen different school systems, if the priests are to take possession of all the avenues of knowledge, what will be the fate of this Province? Will it rise in the scale of nations, ever to be distinguished for the intelligence of its people, for its prosperity and advancement?"[93] [93] See bound volumes of _Globe_ in Legislative Library, Toronto. The following from the Toronto _Examiner_, reprinted in the _Globe_ of April 7th, 1853, shows that the _Globe_ was not alone in its opinions:-- "We are reluctantly forced to the conviction that the rupture, complete and final, of the Common School system of Canada is only a question of time. We were among those who looked anxiously to the Government for a liberal and decided policy on this momentous question. An examination of the supplementary School Bill which we give in other columns will bear us out but too fully, we fear, in pronouncing its liberality exceedingly questionable.... How different in Canada. Reformers have been bidding for Roman Catholic votes until they are likely to bid away every distinctive principle which they hold, and when this is done will it satisfy the ends of men whose mission is to establish in the place of free institutions the domination of priestcraft?" The following from the Roman Catholic _Mirror_, quoted in the _Globe_, April 9th, 1853, shows that the Roman Catholics were well pleased with the Bill: