asonable French-Canadian peculiarities. But he favoured
the British-Constitutional way of 'broadening down from
precedent to precedent' rather than the French way of
referring to a supposedly infallible written regulation.
We shall soon meet him as a far-seeing statesman. But he
well deserves an honoured place in Canadian history for
his legal services alone. To him, more than to any other
man, is due the nicely balanced adjustments which eventually
harmonized the French and English codes into a body of
laws adapted to the extraordinary circumstances of the
province of Quebec.

Besides the committee on laws Carleton had nominated
three other active committees of his council, one on
police, another on education, and a third on trade and
commerce. The police committee was of the usual kind and
dealt with usual problems in the usual way. But the
education committee brought out all the vexed questions
of French and English, Protestant and Roman Catholic,
progressive and reactionary. Strangely enough, the sharpest
personal controversy was that between Hubert, the Roman
Catholic bishop of Quebec, and his coadjutor Bailly.
Hubert enumerated all the institutions already engaged
in educational work and suggested that 'rest and be
thankful' was the only proper attitude for the committee
to assume. But Bailly very neatly pointed out that his
respected superior's real opinions could not be those
attributed to him over his own signature because they
were at variance with the facts. Hubert had said that
the cures were spreading education with most commendable
zeal, had repudiated the base insinuation that only three
or four people in each parish could read and write, and
had wound up by thinking that while there was so much
land to clear the farmers would do better to keep their
sons at home than send them to a university, where they
would be under professors so 'unprejudiced' as to have
no definite views on religion. Bailly argued that the
bishop could not mean what these words seemed to imply,
as the logical conclusion would be to wait till Canada
was cleared right up to the polar circle. In the end the
committee made three very sanguine recommendations: a
free common school in every parish, a secondary school
in every town or district, and an absolutely non-sectarian
central university. This educational ladder was never
set up. There was nothing to support either end of it.
The financial side was one difficulty. The Jesuit