This book is based on my Ph. D thesis, The Catholic Laity and Secular Education in New South Wales 1860-1885, which was presented to the University of new South Wales in 1974. It differs from the original in that, for the most part, the paraphernalia of scholarship have been omitted. The bibliography has been pruned down to the dimensions of an extended reading list, footnotes are almost entirely absent, and methodological and source-criticism discussions with them. What has been omitted, it is felt, is of interest only to the specialist who can readily consult the thesis. As has happened in the past, some readers will disagree with this approach,but that cannot be helped.