Only three years after the Education Act of 1870, Archbishop Manning decided to make education the most important issue of the remainder of his archepiscopate. Determined not to do it alone, Manning knew that his singular voice could not bring about an equitable solution for Catholics. The effort would require agitation from other members of the hierarchy, as well as the laity. It would require an energized Catholic Poor School Committee, as well as new organizations to provide the corporate leadership necessary to make Catholic opinions heard in the press and in Parliament. In a letter to Cardinal Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, Manning chose to employ a military analogy as the appropriate description of the battle they faced on education: ‘It is the field on which I should most wish to fight a general action’. Education was the issue that built the most consensus among the Catholic community. It was also an issue that gave them common ground with their Anglican neighbours, with whom they would ally in the battle over the schools. First, however, they needed to recruit their soldiers and marshal their munitions.

In the Wake of Education Act

Festering within the Catholic community in the 1870s and 1880s was a growing distrust of the school board system and disgust with the increasing financial inequality that accompanied its growth. The Catholic press reflected these beliefs frequently. A survey of articles on education provides some indication of the Catholic political drift in the post-1870 Education Act era.