Public School Education

by Michael Müller

"ADDRESS OF THE PLENARY SYNOD OF BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES.

"The experience of every day shows more and more plainly what serious evils and great dangers are entailed upon Catholic youth by their frequentation of Public Schools in this country. Such is the nature of the system of teaching therein employed, that it is not possible to prevent young Catholics from incurring, through its influence, danger to their faith and morals; nor can we ascribe to any other cause that destructive spirit of indifferentism which has made, and is now making, such rapid strides in this country, and that corruption of morals which we have to deplore in those of tender years. Familiar intercourse with those of false religions, or of no religion; the daily use of authors who assail with calumny and sarcasm our holy religion, its practices, and even its saints—these gradually impair, in the minds of Catholic children, the vigor and influence of the true religion. Besides, the morals and examples of their fellow-scholars are generally so corrupt, and so great their license in word and deed, that through continual contact with them the modesty and piety of our children, even of those who have been best trained at home, disappear like wax before the fire. These evils and dangers did not escape the knowledge of our predecessors, as we learn from the following decrees:

"'(a) Whereas many Catholic children, especially those born of poor parents, have been, and are still, exposed in several places of this province, to great danger of losing their faith and morals, owing to the want of good masters to whom their education may safely be intrusted, we consider it absolutely necessary that schools should be established in which the young may be imbued with the principles of faith and morality, and at the same receive instruction in letters.'"—Council of Baltimore, No. 33.

Teachings of the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX.

In fine, to show the union of the Bishops throughout the world with the Apostolic See in their teaching respecting education, I add the words of the Supreme Pontiff Pope Pius IX., in which, replying to the Archbishop of Freiburg, in Germany, His Holiness clearly expounds, as the Infallible Teacher of the faithful, the truth I am now developing for the instruction of Catholics:

"It is not wonderful that these unhappy efforts (to spread irreligious and revolutionary principles) should be directed chiefly to corrupt the training and education of youth; and there is no doubt that the greatest injury is inflicted on society, when the directing authority and salutary power of the Church are withdrawn from public and private education, on which the happiness of the Church and of the Commonwealth depends so much. For thus society is, little by little, deprived of that truly Christian spirit which alone can permanently secure the foundation of peace and public order, and promote and direct the true and useful progress of civilization, and give man those helps which are necessary for him in order to attain, after this life, his last end hereafter—eternal happiness. And in truth a system of teaching, which not only is limited to the knowledge of natural things, and does not pass beyond the bounds of our life on earth, but also departs from the truth revealed by God, must necessarily be guided by the spirit of error and lies; and education, which, without the aid of the Christian doctrine and of its salutary moral precepts, instructs the minds and moulds the tender heart of youth, which is so prone to evil, must infallibly produce a generation which will have no guide but its own wicked passions and wild conceits, and which will be a source of the greatest misfortunes to the Commonwealth and their own families.

"But if this detestable system of education, so far removed from Catholic faith and ecclesiastical authority, becomes a source of evils, both to individuals and to society, when it is employed in the higher teaching, and in schools frequented by the better class, who does not see that the same system will give rise to still greater evils, if it be introduced into primary schools? For it is in these schools, above all, that the children of the people ought to be carefully taught from their tender years the mysteries and precepts of our holy religion, and to be trained with diligence to piety, good morals, religion and civilization. In such schools religious teaching ought to have so leading a place in all that concerns education and instruction, that whatever else the children may learn should appear subsidiary to it. The young, therefore, are exposed to the greatest perils whenever, in the schools, education is not closely united with religious teaching. Wherefore, since primary schools are established chiefly to give the people a religious education, and to lead them to piety and Christian morality, they have justly attracted to themselves, in a greater degree than other educational institutions, all the care, solicitude, and vigilance of the Church. The design of withdrawing primary schools from the control of the Church, and the exertions made to carry this design into effect, are therefore inspired by a spirit of hostility towards her, and by the desire of extinguishing among the people the divine light of our holy faith. The Church, which has founded these schools, has ever regarded them with the greatest care and interest, and looked upon them as the chief object of her ecclesiastical authority and government; and whatsoever removed them from her, inflicted serious injury both on her and on the schools. Those who pretend that the Church ought to abdicate or suspend her control and her salutary action upon the primary schools, in reality ask her to disobey the commands of her Divine Author, and to be false to the charge she has received from God, of guiding all men to salvation; and in whatever country this pernicious design of removing the schools from the ecclesiastical authority should be entertained and carried into execution, and the young thereby exposed to the danger of losing their faith, there the Church would be in duty bound not only to use her best efforts, and to employ every means to secure for them the necessary Christian education and instruction, but, moreover, would feel herself obliged to warn all the faithful, and to declare that no one can in conscience frequent such schools, as being adverse to the Catholic Church."

I exclaim with the great St. Augustine: "Securus judicat orbis terrarum." The Bishops of the universal world, united to the Vicar of Christ, speak with authority; their judgment cannot be gainsaid. Peter has spoken through Pius; the question is settled; would that the error, too, were at an end!

Testimonies of Enemies of the Catholic Church.

However, it is not from the Bishops alone that we learn the dangers of bad education. Our opponents, too, the enemies of our holy religion, deem no other means more efficacious for alienating our children from our mother, the Catholic Church.

One of the greatest enemies of the Catholic faith in the first half of the last century, Primate Boulter, who took a chief part in founding the notorious "Charter Schools," writing to the Bishop of London on the fifteenth of May, 1730, said:

"I can assure you the Papists here are so numerous, that it highly concerns us in point of interest, as well as out of concern for the salvation of these poor creatures who are our fellow-subjects, to try all possible means to bring them and theirs to the true religion; and one of the most likely methods we can think of is, if possible, instructing and converting the young generation; for instead of converting these that are adults, we are daily losing many of our meaner people, who go off to Popery."

And with respect to mixed education in particular, we have the opinion of another Anglican prelate, who, in despite of his professions of liberality, may be fittingly classed with Primate Boulter in his contempt for our people, and desire to subvert our holy religion by the means of education—the late Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately. We are informed by his daughter, that on one occasion he said: "The education supplied by the National Board is gradually undermining the vast fabric of the Irish Roman Catholic Church.". (Life of Dr. Whately, pp. 244, first edition.) Again: "I believe, as I said the other day, that mixed education is gradually enlightening the mass of the people, and that if we give it up, we give the only hope of weaning the Irish from the abuses of Popery. But I cannot venture openly to profess this opinion, I cannot openly support the Educational Board as an instrument of conversion. I have to fight its battles with one hand, and that my best, tied behind me." (p. 246.)

The language of the Church, then, and even that of the enemies of our religion, is quite plain on the subject of godless education. The good Catholic understands this language of his spiritual mother; he listens to it; he repeats it to himself and others, and he goes by it. Not long ago the Catholics of Ireland presented a requisition to the English Government to show their unanimity, and their determination to secure a Catholic education for Catholic children. What a glorious array of signatures is attached to it! There we find the honored names of the only Catholic lords that the operation of penal laws has left in that land ever faithful to the Church. There we read the names of the Lord Mayor, and the aldermen and town councillors of the great City of Dublin, of many baronets and deputy lieutenants, of several members of Parliament, magistrates, high sheriffs, clergymen, wealthy merchants, and land-owners; of men distinguished in the various scientific and literary professions or pursuits; of country gentlemen, traders, artisans, and of all the classes that constitute the bone and sinew of the country. In a word, the requisition is signed by more than 30,000 Catholics of every degree. May it not be considered as a great plebiscite? Is it not a proof that the laity and clergy are all of one mind? Is it not a solid refutation of the foolish assertion of some Presbyterians, that the Catholic laity take no interest in the education question, and that, were it not for the priests, the laity would be perfectly satisfied to accept godless instruction for their children? Those who attribute this baneful indifference to the laity, misrepresent and calumniate them, and show their ignorance of their real feelings, and of the efforts which Catholics in Ireland, in Belgium, in Germany, and in other countries, have made to have and to preserve a good Christian education for their children. The principal Catholic gentlemen in Ireland some time ago published an important declaration, presented afterwards to Parliament, in which they proclaimed their adhesion to the principles held by the true Church in regard to education.

As for the Catholic laity of Ireland in general, feeling, as they do in a special manner, the signal blessing they enjoy in possessing the true faith, and knowing that it is a priceless treasure with which, far more precious than worldly substance, they can enrich their children, their love for Catholic education is proved to evidence by the multitudes of their sons and daughters who throng every Catholic school, and especially every school in which the presence of Christian Brothers or of Nuns gives a guarantee that religion shall have the first place, and shall impregnate the whole atmosphere which their little ones are to breathe for so many hours of the day. They have proved, also, their dislike and fear of mixed education, by turning their faces away from schools in which no expense had been spared, on which thousands of pounds of the public money had been squandered, but against which their Bishops deemed it their duty to warn them. Hence, in several Model Schools erected in populous cities and towns, where the great majority of the inhabitants are Catholics, sometimes not ten, sometimes not two of their children are found within the unhallowed precincts of those mixed institutions.

In fine, the opinion of all the Irish Catholics on this subject of education is so well known, that nearly all of the Liberal candidates who sought their votes at the last elections for the House of Commons, declared in their electioneering addresses their adhesion to the principle of denominational education, and their determination to uphold it, and push it forward in Parliament.

And with good reason are they steadfast in those principles, for they know the necessary connection between good education and the maintenance of religion in their country. And they are determined to struggle for the establishment, in Ireland, of a sound Catholic system of public education, and never to relax their efforts till they obtain the recognition of this, their own and their children's right, even as they wrung Catholic emancipation from a hostile Parliament.

Thus the Catholic laity practise what their pastors teach; and in Ireland and other countries, both pastors and people are united in holding that nothing so effectually destroys religion in a country as a godless system of instruction, whilst they believe, at the same time, that a good Christian education contributes to preserve true religion, and to spread the practice of every virtue and of good works through the land.

Though the Catholic Church and her children are so anxious for the progress of knowledge, and have made such sacrifices for the civilization and enlightenment of the world, yet they do not indiscriminately approve of every system of education. Every one knows how much is done in our days, by the enemies of religion, to poison the sources of knowledge, and to undermine religion, under the pretext of promoting the liberal arts and sciences. In order to give a proper impulse to study, by securing protection for it, some insist that the full control of public instruction should be given to the government of each country, to be carried on by Ministers of State, or public boards; others attach so much importance to the development of the intellectual faculties, that they call for compulsory and gratuitous education, in order to give a great degree of culture to all classes; and others, in fine, demand an unsectarian education, pretending that God should be banished from the school, and children brought up without being subjected to any religious influences. The Catholic Church and her pastors, being charged to feed the flock of Christ with the food of truth and life, and to preserve the lambs of the fold from the contagion of error, cannot approve such systems, which seem to have been invented by the fashion of the day, a desire of innovation, or a spirit of hostility to religion.

It was to His Church, and not to the State, that Jesus Christ gave the command, "Go and teach all nations."—(Matt. xxviii.) "As the Father hath sent Me, so do I send you also."—(John xx.) "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep."—(John xxi.)

The office of the Church is to teach and sanctify all men. She receives the child on its first entrance into the world, and, by means of holy baptism, makes it a child of God. Like her Divine Bridegroom, she says: "Suffer the little children to come to me."

Now the Christian school is the place and the provision made for the training of those who are baptized into the Christian faith. They have been made children of God, and as such they have a right to four things belonging to them by a right of inheritance, to which all other rights are secondary. They have a right to the knowledge of their faith; to the training of their conscience by the knowledge of God's commandments; to the Sacraments of grace; and to a moral formation, founded on the precepts and example of our Divine Saviour. These four things belong, by a Divine right, to the child of the poorest working man; by a right more sacred than that which guards the inheritance of lands and titles to the child of the rich. A child of God, and an heir to the kingdom of heaven, holds these four things by a higher title; and his claim is under the jurisdiction of a Divine Judge. But the school is the place and the provision for the insuring of these four vital parts of his right to the Christian child. They cannot be taught or learned elsewhere; there is no other place of systematic and sufficient formation. And if so, then the school becomes the depository of the rights of parents, and of the inheritance of their children. The school is strictly a court of the Temple, a porch outside the Sanctuary. It cannot be separated from the Church. It was created by the Church, and the Church created it for its own mission to its children. As the Church cannot surrender to any power on earth the formation of its own children, so it cannot surrender to any the direction of its own schools.

It was the Church, as I have shown in the second chapter, that gave life and being to Christian education; and education must remain under the guardianship of the Church, if it will not cease to be Christian. History shows us that it is the Church that has civilized the nations, and it is the Church that keeps them from falling back into their former degradation. Learning was not diffused among mankind until the Church removed the veil of sin and ignorance, made man really free, and widened the narrow limits of human thought by showing to man the infinite, the eternal destiny that awaited him. This supernatural light—this "freedom of the children of God"—is the very foundation, the very lifespring of civilization. The Catholic Church, then, far from being opposed to education, is its great and most zealous promoter. But she cannot help being opposed to the Pagan system of education adopted in the Public Schools of this country.

It is clear that this plan takes away the right of parents, whom God has charged with the care of their children, and it must necessarily interfere with the proper management of families. In the second place, it ignores the rights of the Church, to whom Christ gave the commission to teach all nations. In the third place, since governments, as constituted at present, have no religion, the teaching they give must tend to infidelity. In the fourth place, if governments take into their hands the management of things which do not appertain to them, the probability is that they will neglect, or carry on badly, the great temporal affairs which it is their duty to attend to. In the last place, experience shows that education carried on by the State is most expensive, and that it opens the way to intrigues and frauds. To confirm all these observations, it is sufficient to refer to France, where State influence has been supreme for the last seventy years in university education, and where the Government has exercised an exorbitant control over every branch of public instruction. What has been the result? Literature has fallen away, the number of schools has decreased, the French language has decayed, whilst moral corruption has penetrated the heart of the country, and infidelity of the worst kind has been patronized and encouraged among the teachers of youth, and the highest honors have been decreed to Littres and Renans, and other decided enemies of Jesus Christ. May we not read the condemnation of all such proceedings in the lurid flames of the burning Capital of modern civilization? Now, is it not clear that the primary object of education must be frustrated in the mixed system which proposes to unite children of all religions in the same school, and to treat of nothing in the class hours that could offend any of these discordant elements? If there be a Jew in the school, you cannot speak of the Gospel; if there be a Mahometan, nothing could be said against polygamy, and other degrading doctrines of the Koran; due respect must also be paid to the teaching of Arians and Socinians, who deny the Trinity of persons in God, and the Divinity of Christ; and to the opinions of Calvinists and Lutherans, of Methodists and other sectaries, who assail almost every point of revealed religion. In this case, how can the atmosphere of the school be religious; and must not children living in it grow up in ignorance both of the dogmas and practices of religion?

This result may not be unacceptable to those who are outside the Catholic Church, because, not acknowledging any Divine authority to guide or rule them, they have no certainty in doctrinal matters, and they do not attach any importance to external discipline. But how different is the case with Catholics! We have many distinctive doctrines, such as the Real Presence in the Blessed Eucharist, the power of remitting sin, the Divine origin of the Church, and the primacy and infallibity of the Pope, all which it is our duty to learn and to believe. We are also bound to observe many precepts, to hear Mass, to pray and make the sign of the Cross, to go to confession, to fast and abstain, and to obey other commandments of the Church. If these doctrines, so sublime, and so far above the intelligence of man, be not continually inculcated on the mind of a child, how can he know them, or believe them as he ought? And if the practices referred to be not frequently urged on his attention, will he not ignore or neglect them because they are hard to flesh and blood? And what will be the case where the Protestant pupils in a school are in a considerable majority, and the teacher of the same religion? Will not the Protestant children turn the doctrines and practices of the Catholics into ridicule? And will not the example, and the words, and the gestures of the heterodox master, especially if he be kind and friendly, produce impressions dangerous to belief on the youthful Catholic mind? Is it not probable that a Catholic boy, observing how his master, to whom he looks up with respect, is accustomed to act, will easily persuade himself that there is no necessity of going to confession, or fasting, or making the sign of the cross, or performing works of mortification? Indeed, the probability is that Catholics educated in such circumstances, if they do not abandon their religion altogether, will be only lukewarm, indifferent, or dangerous members of the Church.

And here let me direct your attention to another dangerous tendency of godless education. In this system all religions, true or false, are treated with equal respect; not only Anglicans and Presbyterians, but Wesleyans and Plymouth Brothers, and the followers of every other small and miserable sect that has started into existence in modern times, are put on a footing of equality with the true Catholic Church, which traces its origin back to its Divine Founder, has existed in every age, defied the fury of persecution and the ravages of time, and numbers under its sceptre two hundred millions of faithful children spread over the world. And is not this to proclaim that there is no difference between light and darkness, no preference to be given to Christ over Belial, to truth over heresy, and error and infidelity? In a word, is not this to teach indifference to religion, or, what is equivalent, that no religion is necessary? What shall I now say of books so compiled as to meet the exigencies of godless education? Have they not the same tendency to promote ignorance of, or indifference to, religion? No religious dogmatical teaching, no inculcation of pious practices, no mention of the great and sublime mysteries of Catholicity can be admitted in them, lest some things should be said offensive to any sect that sends children to the school. This suppression of Catholic truth is most detrimental to our poor Catholic children, many of whom never read any books except those which they use in school, and learn nothing except what they meet with in those books, or hear from their master. Is not this a serious loss? Is it not a great evil for Catholics to be brought up in ignorance, not only of the doctrines, but also of the history of the Church to which they belong, and of the life and deeds of so many Christian heroes whose virtues illustrated the world?

How far superior is the system of the Christian Brothers, and other Catholic educational institutions! Their books make continual reference to the mysteries of religion, they depict the glories of the Church, the majesties of the Apostolic See, and continually inflame the youthful mind to the practice of good works, by proposing to them the lives and virtues of holy men, and by continually reminding them of their religious duties, of the end of man, and of other great motives calculated to induce them to serve God. In regard to this matter, I shall merely add that the common school-books have been generally compiled by Protestants, that scarcely any extract from Catholic authors is admitted in them, that they contain many Methodistical stories, that their language is that of the Protestant Bible, and that they contain many things offensive to our love of religion.

Do you want to see what man without God—without religion—can do? Read the history of the last eighty years in Paris. You have there one simple phenomenon—generation rising after generation, without God in the world. And why? Because, without Christian education. First, an atheistical revolution; next, an empire penetrated through with a masking philosophy and a reckless indifferentism; afterwards came governments changed in name and in form, but not in practice, nor in spirit. The Church, trammelled by protection, her spiritual action faint and paralyzed, could not penetrate the masses of the people, and bring her salutary influence to bear upon them. She labored fervently; her sons fought nobly for Christian freedom; thousands were saved; but for eighty years the mass of men has grown up without God and without Christ in the world. These outbursts of horror, strife, outrage, sacrilege, bloodshed, are the harvest reaped from the rank soil in which such seed was cast. All this is true. But how did souls created to the image of God grow up in such a state? They were robbed: robbed before they were born; robbed of their inheritance, and reared up in an education without Christianity. Let this be a warning to ourselves! We are told that a child may be taught to read, and to write, and to spell, and to sum, without Christianity. Who denies it? But what does this make of them? To what do they grow up? The formation of the will and heart and character, the formation of a man, is education, and not the reading, and the writing, and the spelling, and the summing. Physiology, astronomy, chemistry, anatomy, and all other sciences with sounding names, and of Greek etymology, will not teach our children the respect, love, and obedience due to parents. They will not teach them modesty, which is the brightest ornament of woman, and renders the relation of man with his fellow-man harmonious and pleasant. They will not teach them industry and purity, which insure peace and happiness in the family circle. They will not teach them the fidelity which the espoused owe to each other, nor the obligations contracted by parents towards their children, nor will they teach them to know, love, and serve God in this world, in order to be happy with Him forever in the next.

For fifteen hundred years Christians served God and loved man, before, as yet, they received this cultivation of our age; and we, because we have it so profusely, are forgetting the deeper and diviner lessons. The tradition of Christian education in this country is, as yet, unbroken. It has, however, been greatly undermined. It will be completely broken if we Catholics do not strive, to the best of our power, to preserve it. We Catholics, therefore, believe that it is our most sacred duty to bring up our children in "the discipline and correction of the Lord." We hold that it is our most conscientious obligation to bequeath to our children the most valuable of all legacies—good religious impressions, and a sound religious education. We hold that religious education is the most essential part of instruction.

Now we know that religious education is not, and cannot, be given in our present school system. Our present system of common-school education either ignores religion altogether, or teaches principles which are false and dangerous; and if it gives any religious education, it consists merely in certain vague, unmeaning generalities, and is often worse than no education at all. Instruction without religion, is like a ship without a compass. Ignorance is, indeed, a great evil; but of the two evils, it is even better, in some respects, for our children to remain ignorant, than to acquire mere worldly knowledge without any religious training; for without religion they grow up a burden to themselves, and a pest to society.

Human nature is prone to evil; and the rising passions, especially in youth, need religious influence to check them. There is a vast difference between teaching the child's head and forming his heart. Mere instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic will never teach a young man to control his passions, and to practise virtue. Such instruction may do for Pagans, but it will never do for Catholics.

We can say that, so far as our Catholic children are concerned, the workings of our Public School system have proved, and do prove, highly detrimental to their faith and morals. So strongly has the conviction of this been impressed upon the minds both of the pastors and parents, that most strenuous efforts, and even enormous sacrifices have been made, and continue to be made, in order to establish and support Catholic parochial schools. In many cities of the Union there is, at the present moment, in daily attendance at these schools, an average number of between eighteen and twenty thousand children. The annual expense for the maintenance of these schools does not fall short of one hundred thousand dollars; while the amount expended for the purchase of lots, and the erection of proper school buildings, etc., considerably exceeds a million.

The Catholics of New York subscribed, in 1868, $132,000 for the support of their own school, and, besides, they had contributed a million and a quarter of dollars for the sites and the buildings of Catholic schools.

Nothing but the deepest sense of the many dangers to which the religious and moral principles of the children are exposed, could prompt Catholic parents to make such pecuniary sacrifices, or assume such onerous burdens; for it has to be borne in mind that, while they are thus obliged, through conscientious motives, to support their own schools, they have, at the same time, to bear their share of the taxation imposed for the support of the Public Schools.

All this is true; yet I can scarcely refrain from expressing my surprise at the extremely abnormal lethargy manifested by so many Catholics, both in high and low places, regarding a duty, the chief one incumbent upon them as members of the family, as citizens, as Christians and as Catholics.

Now the cause for the indifference existing among our people on the question of Catholic education, may be attributed to a false process of reasoning. They argue: it will cost money. True; but it is not by State aid, or City aid, that the work of Catholic daily instruction and education in parochial schools is to be carried on. These schools are to be supported, as our churches are, by the alms of the faithful.

The Catholics of other countries have their duties to perform, different, in part, from ours, but demanding great self-sacrifice. We, too, except we be "bastards, and not sons," must make our great sacrifices. The first, the most pressing, is that of supporting a good Catholic education. In neglecting Catholic education, we lose that which money cannot buy. Can we conceive of a parent, a Catholic parent, so cruel, so depraved, and so God-forsaken as to sacrifice his child, both body and soul, and devote him to eternal destruction, through eagerness to spare the paltry pence that a proper education might cost? It seems quite certain that if we wait for just appropriations from the State before we shoulder the burden ourselves, wait for it to compel us to accept of Catholic education, we shall find ourselves in a very unfit condition to appreciate the favor; and from present indications, this generation, at least, is likely to pass away before such interest will be manifested in our behalf.

Now we must be persuaded that if we allow one generation to be brought up in unbelief, and the course of tradition to be once interrupted, the following generations will fall into a darkness and ignorance worse than that of Paganism; living here without a God, and quitting this world without any consoling hope of a blessed immortality.

So it proved, not long ago, with an unhappy wretch, the child of parents that had forgotten the law of their God, and sent her to one of the Public Schools in a town on the North River. She played the harlot, when she grew old enough, and then sought to add to this the crime of a horrible murder—the murder of the child that was of her own flesh and blood. In procuring its murder, she lost her own life. In the den of the monster-abortionist, and finding herself dying, one of the vile attendants now declares that she shrieked and begged for a Catholic priest. The Jew into whose murderous gripe she had put herself, found some means to quiet her cry, and she died without seeing a priest. God will keep His word! He has said, "Because thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will forget thy children!"

I do not say that Catholic parents are obliged, under the pain of mortal sin, to have any secular education given to their children. But I do say that they are forbidden, by the law of the Catholic Church, to send their children to any schools where the Catholic religion is not practised and taught.

If neglect to comply with the law of God and of His Church, neglect to receive the sacraments at certain times, and under certain circumstances, is a mortal sin, is it much less a sin to neglect the proper education of our youth, upon which, to a great extent, their entire future depends? And if the sacraments are refused to persons persisting in sin, should not a sin of this great character be also considered in the conditions requisite for the worthy reception of the sacraments? I hesitate not to pronounce this matter of education a matter of conscience, and it should be treated accordingly by those who have the charge of souls. We see ecclesiastical edifices of great magnitude, splendor, and expense, erected everywhere by Catholics, but for what purpose? To attract non-Catholics? Bosh! A Catholic can hear Mass in caverns, in catacombs, or under hedges, as they have often been obliged to do; but if we lose our children there will be none to hear it anywhere, nor any to offer the Holy Sacrifice, even in our most gorgeous cathedrals. Where will be our Catholics? Scandal and disgrace will be the order of the day.

I do not wish it to be understood here that I entertain any, even the least, doubt of the indefectibility of the Church, or of the faithful fulfilment of the promises of Christ; for the Church will exist in spite of man. But again I say that Catholics are violating a most sacred duty in not providing facilities for Catholic education.

This, O Catholics! is what the money you are making so rapidly ought, in generous part, to be devoted to. So you will think, at a day fast coming, when your bodies will be buried sumptuously, your souls forgotten by the living, and the estates you have hoarded with so much industry shall have become, perhaps, the objects of disgraceful law-suits among your heirs.

Dear Catholics, let us cast off our lethargy; let us be unitedly active in this matter; let us discard the flimsy arguments of "liberal" Catholics who would discourage the enterprise, regarding every such as our most dangerous foe. Let us make our voice heard and our actions felt, and bring up our children in a manner creditable to ourselves, an honor and consolation to their parents, a blessing to society, worthy members of the Church of God, and candidates for the kingdom of heaven.