mbership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized
districts is an absolute necessity. It is the only _logical basis_ for
true _knowledge of conditions_ and for development. This "survey" will
bring us into immediate contact with the fallen-away Catholics. As it
is now, are we not too often _waiting_ for the fallen-away to come to
us? If the survey has proved essential in the solving of educational
and social problems, why should it not commend itself in religious
matters? Proselytizers--especially the English Biblical Society, with
headquarters at Toronto and Winnipeg, have the survey of the West down
to a science. Their map room in the Bible House of Winnipeg is a
perfect religious topography of Western Canada. We are firm believers
in what we would call the "Catholicization" of modern methods that have
proved beneficial to any cause. "Without this survey and the grasp
which it yields of the relative proportion of things, a vast waste of
matter and energy alike is inevitable."

This Catholic survey of unorganized districts may appear to some as "a
dream," a desk-policy of apostleship--as too modern, etc.[2] The only
answer I can give are the facts and figures of the American Catholic
Church Extension, whose work along similar lines proves their
efficiency and high value.

The specific and ultimate object of the survey would be to keep
Catholics who live out of the radius of parish life, in constant touch
with the Church, its teaching, its sacraments and its authority. The
mailing of Catholic literature pamphlets, devotional and controversial,
and newspapers, the teaching of catechism by correspondence, as is
practised in certain districts of Minnesota, the selection of teachers
for foreign districts and of boys for higher education, the
establishment of a central Catholic Bureau of information in each
Province, which could serve as a clearing house and centre of Catholic
activities, and other means of apostleship, these would be the natural
consequences of the survey. Who cannot see what a help this would be
to our scattered Catholics? A great help to keep the faith among the
scattered home-steaders.

The service of an _auto-chapel_ would bring them also, at least once a
year, the benefit of the sacraments and the blessing of the priests'
visit. For, let us not forget it, one family now lost to the Church
means several families in the coming generation. This absence of
contact with the Chur