In the early days of New England, and even of several of the other American States, the Puritans always used the Public Schools as a powerful means of spreading their peculiar doctrines. When they were stripped of this power by the liberal founders of American independence, they still struggled for many years to accomplish, by indirect means, the injustice which they dared not maintain openly. We all remember how the poor Catholic boys and girls of the Public Schools were harassed by colporteurs and proselytizers, who carried baskets filled, not with bread for the poor hungry children, no, but with oily tracts, cunningly devised to weaken, or even destroy, the religious faith of those poor little ones. In some schools even, Catholic children were urged and enticed to go to the sectarian Sunday-schools, and pictures, cakes, and sweetmeats were liberally promised, in order to induce them to go. Teachers were selected with special regard to their bitter hatred of the Catholic Church, and their zeal for "evangelical" propagandism. Some years ago, in New Orleans, when the school-board was composed of bigoted sectarians, many of them sectarian preachers, all the Catholic teachers, male and female, were turned out of the schools, merely because they were Catholics.
And even if Catholic children are not always expressly taught doctrines opposed to their religion, nevertheless the school-books which they use are, as I have said, frequently tainted with anti-Catholic prejudices and misrepresentations. Nothing can be more evident than the decidedly anti-Catholic spirit of English literature in all its departments. It has grown up, ever since England's apostasy, in an anti-Catholic soil, in an anti-Catholic atmosphere, and from an anti-Catholic stem. It is essentially anti-Catholic, and tends, wherever it comes in contact with Catholic feelings and principles, to sully, infect, and utterly corrupt them. Sound knowledge, a sound head, strong faith, and great grace—all these combined—may indeed preserve one whom the necessity of his position may lead into un-Catholic schools; but no one will deny that this anti-Catholic literature must exercise a most baneful influence over all those who, without sufficient preparation from nature or grace, plunge into it, in the pursuit of amusement or knowledge. Protestant ideas will not make the Catholic turn Protestant, there is not much danger of that, but they will tend to make him an infidel; they will destroy his principles without putting others in their place; they will relax and deaden the whole spiritual man.
In these schools, Catholic children are taught that the Catholic Church is the nursery of ignorance and vice; they are taught that all the knowledge, civilization, and virtue which the world now possesses, are the offspring of the so-called "Reformation." They learn nothing of the true history of Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Ireland, Austria, and the other Catholic countries of Europe; they learn nothing of the true history of Mexico, and the various Catholic countries of North and South America. They never hear of the vast libraries of Catholic learning, the rich endowments of Catholic education all over the world, for ages; they never hear of the countless universities, colleges, academies, and free schools established by the Catholic Church, and by Catholic governments, throughout Christendom. Where is the common school book whose author has manly honesty enough to acknowledge that even the famous universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded by Catholics, and plundered from their lawful possessors by an apostate government?
Moreover, Catholic children are often singled out by their school-companions, and sometimes even by their teachers, as objects of ridicule. Now what is the result of all this training? The consequence is, that either the Catholic children become ashamed of their holy religion, and despise their parents, or, if they have the courage to hold out, their tender minds are subject to numberless petty annoyances; they must endure a species of martyrdom. This is no exaggeration; I have it from good authority. Practically speaking, the present common school system is but a gigantic scheme for proselytism and for infidelity.
Now we intend that our children shall be taught to love and revere their holy Church. We wish to teach them that that Church has been, for over eighteen hundred years, the faithful guardian of that very Bible of which Protestants prate so loudly, and which they dishonor so much. We wish our children to learn that the Catholic Church has been, in all ages, the friend and supporter of true liberty; i.e., liberty united to order and justice. We wish them to know that the Catholic Church has ever been the jealous guardian of the sanctity of marriage; that she has always defended it against brutal lust, and heathen divorce courts. We wish our children to know, moreover, that the Catholic Church holds the sword of vengeance uplifted above the heads of the child-murderers, and the perpetrators of unnatural crimes. We wish our children, in fine, to regard the Church as the only hope of society, the only salvation of their country, the only means of preserving intact all the blessings of freedom.
The Public Schools are not only seminaries of infidelity, they are, moreover, in many cases, hot-beds of immorality. In these schools every child is received, no matter how vicious or corrupt he or his parents may be. "One mangy sheep," as the homely proverb says, "infects the whole flock." So one corrupt child in a school is capable of corrupting and ruining all the others. And, in fact, where have our young people learned the shameful habit of self-abuse, and many other foul, unnatural crimes, that are bringing so many thousands to an early grave? Ask those unhappy victims, ask our physicians throughout the country, and they will tell you that, in almost every instance, it was from the evil companions with whom they associated in the common schools. Ah! you will see, only on the Day of Judgment, how many unnatural crimes have been taught and propagated, from generation to generation, in these very hot-beds of iniquity.
"But, Father," some one will say, "what harm can there be in sending children to Public Schools? for many of the teachers are professing Christians, and exert a continual Christian influence."
But many more are non-professors, and exert an anti-Christian influence. Go and visit those schools, and you will soon be able to tell the religious status of the teachers in charge, by the general tone of the exercises. One presided over by a zealous Methodist resembles a Methodist Sunday-school, or conference meeting. Another, under the care of a "smart young man," delighting in love songs, boating songs, etc., has the general tone of a young folks' glee-club. In another, in which one of the professors is an atheist, it is a matter of common remark among the boys that Prof. —— said there was no God. In another, one of the teachers is overheard sneering at a child because she believes in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has a reverence for religious things.
What I have just said is true. I have it from good authority. It is therefore no recommendation at all for the Public School system to say that many of the teachers are professing Christians. Even the very fact that many of the teachers in the Public Schools are good Catholics, is no recommendation whatever for these schools, for it matters nothing, absolutely nothing, whether the teacher be Catholic or not; according to law, no teacher is allowed to explain a single dogma of Catholic faith. Now the dogmas of our holy faith have been revealed, and, in order to be known, they must be taught. Ordinarily speaking, education is necessary to learn and preserve the faith. The Catholics of Ireland, indeed, by the special assistance of God, preserved their holy faith, though they were not permitted, by a bigoted government, to receive the education they needed and desired. But in this country, where there is no such prohibition, where parents are free to send their children to Catholic schools, it is presumption in them, it is a rash defiance to the ordinary laws of God's providence, to neglect the daily systematic training of the minds and hearts of their children, in conformity with Catholic discipline. Julian the Apostate forbade Catholics to be educated in their holy faith, for he knew very well that there is no more certain means of destroying the faith than by not suffering it to be taught.
It is almost certain that wherever there are no Catholic schools, wherever the Catholic religion is not taught and practised in school, there the Catholic religion will practically die out, as soon as immigration from Catholic countries ceases.