It requires but little intelligence to see wherein the difference consists between these two systems of education—the one expanding, the other dwarfing the intellect. If, however, each improved the intellect alike, the public schools are entitled to the preference for the reason that they instill into the minds of the pupils the great fundamental principles upon which our Government is founded; whereas those who attend the papal schools are instructed that the most essential of these principles are the fruitful source of heresies, and, consequently, of ills to the human family. The two systems, therefore, remain in conflict—just as they have hitherto been—and the greatest question the present generation is called upon to decide is, Which shall triumph? With those of us who desire to maintain our popular form of government, this question does not involve religious faith. But with the defenders of the papacy and followers of the pope it does. And, consequently, those who are willing to form a politico-religious party, pledged to restore temporal power to the pope, even at the possible hazard of a war with Italy, and entangling alliances with other European powers, are promised a crown of eternal glory; while those who are seeking to maintain our institutions as our fathers framed them are anathematized for the sin of rebellion against papal authority.
FOOTNOTES:
[209] Life of Leo XIII. By O'Reilly. Pages 482-483.
[210] The pastoral letter of this Council can be found in Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1866, p. 677. Its meaning is plain—that the Church is superior to the State, and must be obeyed by the State, in all such matters as the Church considers within its jurisdiction.
[211] The Lives and Times of the Roman Pontiffs. By De Montor. Vol. II, pp. 783-793, where this encyclical is given at length. This work has the special approval of the Archbishop of New York.
JESUITICAL TEACHINGS.
Inasmuch as Leo XIII has considered himself entitled, by virtue of his spiritual power, to prescribe authoritatively the relations which his followers in this country are hereafter to sustain to our system of public-school education, it is proper for us to inquire wherein the system he proposes to have introduced differs from our own. In this way we shall not only be able to understand the contrast between them, but discover why he gives the preference to the papal or Jesuit system. At the beginning of this inquiry, we are relieved from any trouble by his biographer, who tells us that while Cardinal Pecci, "he drew up, in 1858, a constitution and rules for an academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, which was to extend its benefits to the whole of Umbria," and that since he became pope he has "made the philosophical method of St. Thomas the guide of all Catholic teachers."[212]