For the nuns who desire to leave the convent system, there should be in every state a home where they can work out their own salvation, until such a time as they are prepared to make their own living. Such a home should be supervised in a manner to guarantee that the inmates will not be intimidated by the priests or other representatives of Rome. Convent work is all routine, and from the very day a girl enters she becomes as a spoke in a wheel; her thoughts, judgment and body become an incorporate part of the written rule and customary observances of the system. From long seclusion, peculiar dress, separation from people and all civil society, she becomes estranged to the habits and customs of the world. On account of these conditions, the sisters feel very sensitive and it makes them timid and shrink in embarrassment. If it was not for these difficulties and barriers, and perhaps humiliations, there are hundreds of sisters who would leave the convent system. Many of them stay, not because they desire to do so, but because they do not know where to go or what to do if they leave. I myself would have left many years before, had I known where to have gone or what to have done.
Another thing every American citizen should work for and see to, is that no sectarian school or institution of any nature shall receive financial aid from the State. We are blessed with one of the greatest and best public school systems in the world, and if they are not good enough for the people to send their children to, then this is no country for such a person. The taxpayer has enough to do without keeping up a school system for the purpose of teaching "Hail! Mary!" or the Roman Catholic catechism. Nor do we want sisters of the Roman Catholic sisterhood teaching in our public school, attired in their religious garb. These sisters have taken the vow of poverty, and yet draw their monthly salary from the State school fund. Who do you suppose gets this money? Surely not the poor sister! It of necessity goes to the church. In one county of this state of Oregon we have seven sisters of the sisterhood of the Roman Catholic church teaching in our public schools, attired in their religious garbs. This information comes direct from the county school superintendent's office.
Take away the parochial schools and the Roman Catholic system could not long survive in this country, and, as I have stated in the beginning of this book, the Roman Catholic system would not even have the parochial schools if it were not for our public schools. They must have some means of combating with the popular public education, and to do so institute the parochial schools and demand of the good members of their parishes to send their children to them.
So, it behooves us to have a law compelling every child between certain ages to attend the public school and to refuse further aid to sectarian schools.
Theodore Roosevelt in his "American Ideals" says:
"... We stand unalterably in favor of the public-school system in its entirety. We believe that English, and no other language, is that in which all the school exercises should be conducted. We are against any division of the school fund, and against any appropriation of public money for sectarian purposes. We are against any recognition whatever by the state in any shape or form of state-aided parochial schools."
Jeremiah J. Crowley says in his book, "The Parochial School, A Curse to the Church, A Menace to the Nation":
"The Catholic parochial school in the United States is not founded on loyalty to the Republic, and the ecclesiastics who control it would throttle, if they could, the liberties of the American people.
"It is my profound conviction that the masses of the Catholic people prefer the public schools, and that they send their children to the parochial schools to avoid eternal punishment, as their pastors preach from the pulpit, 'Catholic parents who send their children to the godless public schools are going straight to hell.'"
Again Mr. Crowley says: