Public School Education

by Michael Müller

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.