But we may well adopt the assertion of a writer in the last January number of Blackwood's Magazine, that "the fact is palpable and every statesman, philosopher, and candid student of the educational question confesses, that voluntary agencies are wholly unable to undertake a task so gigantic," as that of reaching the great mass of helpless ignorance existing even in the most favored communities. It is exactly here that government may legitimately step in with its organized resources, but without wearing the pedagogue's cap. The wisest governments of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, have done this. They have abandoned the Lacedemonian usurpation of domestic rights, reproduced by the first Napoleon, as he expressed the policy in his curt style, "My principal end in the establishment of a teaching corps is to possess the means of directing political and moral opinions." A candid confession for an autocrat. The nephew, who now reigns over France, has learned by the experience of misfortune to be wiser and more faithful to natural rights. In Catholic France education is entirely free and without favoritism. The public educational fund is equitably distributed to Catholic and Protestant, and each is permitted to rear, under the supervision of their respective clergy, as they may elect, the children of their own religious household. Conscience is respected; and yet the youth of the country are not deprived of instruction in the Christian faith at the public schools. Protestant Prussia is as liberal and as wise as France, and her system of public instruction is based upon the necessity of religious teaching, and the right of the parent to direct the child, and the just relation of the pastor to the parent, and therefore the equity of a proper distribution of the public-school fund. We have not the time, nor is it necessary to go into the details; but it is sufficient to say that the Prussian system concedes more to the Prussian Catholic than the American Catholic has yet asked from an enlightened and democratic American government; and yet, strange to say, the American Catholic has been violently and persistently charged with hostility to public education, and a conspiracy to destroy republican institutions! Even England, iron-clad in her prejudices, has adopted the principles of Prussia, niggardly as her policy toward the public schools has always been. And what shall we say of "benighted Austria," the land of popish concordats! Let Mr. Kay, a recognized authority upon matters of education, and a Protestant, answer this question.
"The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the Austrian system is the great liberality with which the government, though so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist priesthood, has treated the religious parties who differ from themselves in their religious dogma. It has been entirely owing to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects in Austria, nor the great differences of their religious tenets, has hindered the work of the education of the poor throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that such difficulties may be easily overcome, when a government understands how to raise a nation in civilization, and wishes earnestly to do so.
"In those parishes of the Austrian empire where there are any dissenters from the Roman Church, the education of their children is not directed by the priests, but is committed to the care of the dissenting ministers. These latter are empowered and required by government to provide for, to watch over, and to educate the children of their own sects in the same manner as the priests are required to do for the education of their children."
He also says:
"And yet in these countries—Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhine provinces, and the Catholic Swiss cantons—the difficulties arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all their children have been brought under the influence of religious education without any religious party having been offended." (Kay, vol. ii. p. 3.)
And bearing testimony to the earnest desire of the Catholic Church to advance the education of her children everywhere, he says:
"In Catholic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, the education of the common people in reading, writing, arithmetic, music, manners, and morals is, at least, as generally diffused and as faithfully promoted by the clerical body as in Scotland. It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance of the people, that the popish priesthood of the present day seeks to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the community in Catholic lands; and they might, perhaps, retort upon our Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are in their countries, at the head of the intellectual movement of the age? Education is, in reality, not only not suppressed, but is encouraged by the popish church and is a mighty instrument in its hands and ably used. In every street in Rome, for instance, there are at short distances public primary schools for the education of the children of the lower and middle classes of the neighborhood. Rome, with a population of 158,000 souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482 teachers, and 14,000 children attending them. Has Edinburgh so many schools for the instruction of these classes? I doubt it. Berlin, with a population about double that of Rome, has only 264 schools. Rome has also her university, with an average number of 600 students, and the papal states, with a population of 2,500,000, contains seven universities; Prussia, with a population of 14,000,000, has but seven."
If the church has been found in hostility to educational systems, it has been when, as in Ireland, the schools have been made proselytizing agencies and instruments of oppression; and if she has disfavored without opposing other systems, as here, it was solely to preserve her own people from the damaging effects of a purely secular education, and to secure for them the higher advantages of a religious training. If others find that the schools answer all their wants, she is well pleased to see them derive every benefit therefrom which the best administration of such a system can produce. But the Catholic people say: If we who are counted by millions, and who are daily adding to the wealth of the nation by our labor and enterprise, are required to pay taxes for the support of the public schools which we cannot use for the education of our children, ought we not, at least, to receive an equitable proportion of the public fund, to assist us in securing what every good citizen wishes to see accomplished, the education of our youth? We are now millions, and millions more are coming, by ship and steamer, every day, almost every hour. We are a part of the nation, children and citizens of the great republic. Shall we add to the virtue and intelligence of the community, or to its ignorance and vice? We are struggling with all our might, and devoting all our means to reach the lowest stratum of our society, and lift it up into the light and air of secular knowledge and spiritual grace. Why should not the State of New York help in the good work?
The regulations of France, Prussia, Austria, England, and other countries of Europe would assuredly afford to our legislators the practical details of a good working system, which it is not our province to suggest in form, uninvited. Let it be conceded, however, that millions of men throughout this country should not be taxed for establishments of which they cannot conscientiously avail themselves, unless, at the same time, they are permitted to participate, in a reasonable way, in the enormous funds derived from those tax-rates. Let the schools, though denominational when endowed by the state, be subject to state inspection so far as to insure the full compliance with the requirements of the general law as to the standard of education to be bestowed, but with no further control over management or discipline.