Public School Education

by Michael Müller

Bishop England has asserted that the Catholic Church loses more, in this country, by apostasy, than it gains by conversions. Archbishop Spalding, of Baltimore, asserted one day that, in one body of Methodist ministers, he observed seven or eight who were children of Catholics, and they were the smartest preachers among them.

Neglected children of Catholic parents become the worst enemies of the Catholic Church. The young man who set fire to St. Augustine's Church, in Philadelphia, Pa., was a Catholic, and he gloried in being able to burn his name out of the baptismal record. By a just punishment of God, these neglected Catholic children will become our persecutors.

It is not sufficient to teach the Catechism in church or at home. No! it is not the knowledge of the faith, but the daily practice of it, that produces Catholic life. Nothing but the constant practice of our holy religion can train our youth to withstand the dangers of this age, and this country. It is not necessary to argue this point. Look at the tens of thousands of Catholics who never think of going to Mass on a week-day, and who often neglect it even on Sundays and holy days. Look at all those who never think of visiting our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; who never go to confession more than once or twice a year, and sometimes not even that. Do they not prove, beyond a doubt, that the practical habit of devotion was not taught them in their youth?

Look, on the other hand, at those congregations who, in the tender, susceptible time of youth, were in the habit of going to Mass every day before the opening of the school. See how, when the bell rings, a goodly number of them find time, even on week-days, to assist at the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In such congregations there is indeed Catholic life. These pious Catholics carry the blessing of heaven with them wherever they go. Amid all the cares and troubles of life they are gay and cheerful, whilst others grumble and are sad. The religious doctrines and practices learned in youth, can seldom or never be blotted out. The question of Catholic schools is a question of making the country Catholic. If this means be neglected, all other means will avail but little.

There are others, again, who assert "that the discussion of the education question should be put off for the present as yet, under the pretence that our adversaries are as yet too numerous, and that it is well for us to do nothing until their feelings are more in our favor." If we are to wait until it will please them to say that our claims are just, the day will never dawn when our rights shall be admitted; darkness cannot coalesce with light, vice with virtue, or Belial with Christ. Will those who deny the Divine authority of the Church, assail her doctrines, and seek her destruction, ever cordially assist us in obtaining from our rulers a system of public instruction not dangerous or destructive to our faith? If we consent to defer the education question until the torrent of bigotry will be dried up, we shall be laughed at, and compared to the simple peasant who determined to sit on the bank of a great river and not to attempt to pass it until all its waters should have rolled by; or we shall be compared to the careless farmer who allows rank weeds to grow up in his garden, together with the good plants, till at last the good plants are dwarfed and smothered by the noxious weeds. In my opinion, our own policy with those in authority should be to insist on our rights in season and out of season; and even when our claims may have been slighted or rejected, to continue our demands until every grievance shall be removed.

We must make great exertions to obtain the object of our desires, and display great energy in our proceedings. We have numerous and active enemies to contend with—men as enthusiastic in a bad cause as the Pharisees of the Gospel, who compassed earth and sea to make a proselyte, but who cared very little for his moral progress, once they had secured his adherence to their views. However, we are not left alone in our struggle for religious education. With us we have the sympathy of the Catholics of the world, who are fighting the same battle as we ourselves, and cheer us on by their example. We have with us the blessing of the successor of St. Peter, who has repeatedly approved of the justice of our cause, and we have the sanction of Christ Himself for the safety of the lambs of whose folds we are laboring. But omitting all this, I believe that the most influential and distinguished members, lay and clerical, of the Anglican body, are with us, and that the principal liberal and enlightened Protestants of the Union wish us success.

The State does not interfere with the free exercise of our religion, neither should it interfere with our system of education;—two measures of great importance, well calculated gradually to promote the public welfare of the country. If the State seriously wishes to check the growth of revolution, or to stem the growing torrent of communism and infidelity, they ought to discountenance infidel institutions, and give schools to Catholics, in which they may uphold the true principles of authority, human and Divine, in accordance with the traditions of the Catholic Church of America, and thus strengthen the foundations not only of religion, but of society in general.

Again, some will say, "I do not see why people can object so much to Public Schools; I myself went there, and I think I am as good a Catholic as any one of those who were educated at Catholic schools and institutions."

If you really have tried to be a good Catholic, if you have complied faithfully with all your religious duties, you will have to avow that it is all owing to the beneficial Catholic influence under which you were placed during the time of your scholarship, and afterwards. If you escaped the general contagion of unbelief and vice, remember that it is owing to a kind of miracle of Divine Protection. But what I have said in reference to Public Schools shows sufficiently that such a protection is extended to but few children—it is an exception to the ordinary course of Divine Providence, and God is not bound to grant it to any one.

A certain friend of mine—a man of great learning and experience—wrote to me one day, that "he himself had been, in his youth, subjected to college training; that, be it by nature or by grace, or both combined, he resisted and escaped. But," he adds, "from my observation and experience, I would say it did require a miracle for Catholic youth to escape the damnable effects of a non-Catholic school education." I have had opportunities, in this line, that many a priest has never had. I assert that a Catholic boy of tender years, and perhaps careless training, can be preserved from moral contamination, in public and mixed schools, by nothing less than a miracle. I will not chop logic with any one about it. It is a matter of fact. I therefore assert it as of ascertained result, that in most cases—especially in those cases where there are enough of Catholics together to have a school of their own—their frequenting a school without religion will land most of them in utter carelessness of their religion.