The diocese of Milwaukee has two male and four female academies, and thirty-five free schools, attended by between six and seven thousand children, and four orphan asylums, containing over two hundred orphans.
The diocese of Philadelphia contains eight academies and parochial schools, under the charge of the Christian Brothers, with twenty-five hundred scholars; forty-two other parochial schools, attended by ten thousand pupils; twenty-four academies and select schools for females; three colleges for males; and five asylums, now containing seven hundred and seventy-three male and female orphans.
The above statement embraces but nineteen of the fifty-two dioceses and archdioceses in the United States, as it would extend this article to an unreasonable length were we to undertake to give the statistics of each; which, in regard to many of them, are not sufficiently full in the Directory to enable us to present satisfactory results. Although in many of them the Catholic population is small and sparse, our readers would nevertheless be surprised, no doubt, to see how each one has struggled to supply itself with schools and charitable institutions; and how amazingly they have succeeded, when we consider the comparative scantiness of their resources. We have, however, given enough to afford some idea to our Protestant brethren of the vast interest which their Catholic fellow-citizens have in this question of the public-school fund, and of the great claim to the sympathy and good-will of the country which they have established by their unparalleled efforts in the cause of popular education.
As we have shown above, the Catholics of the archdiocese of New York are educating twenty-three thousand of their children, nineteen thousand within the city limits. The value of their school property is placed at eleven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For the education of these twenty-three thousand, it is estimated that their annual expense does not exceed one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The actual cost of the Catholic free schools in New York City is put down at $104,430 for nineteen thousand four hundred and twenty-eight scholars; which is about five dollars and a half for each. We have before us the Report of the Board of Education for 1867, from which it appears that "the cost per head for educating the children in the public schools under the control of the Board of Education for the year ending 1867, based upon the cost for teachers' salaries, fuel and gas, was $19.75 on the average attendance, or $8.50 on the whole number taught." Adding the cost of books and stationery, each pupil cost $21.76 on the average attendance, or $9.40 on the whole number taught. The basis of the above calculation is: Teachers' salaries, $1,497,180.88; fuel, (estimated in a gross amount of expenses,) $163,315.12, and gas, $13,998.96, making a total of $1,674,496.96. But in fact the actual expenditures for 1867 were $2,973,877.41; which cover items that enter equally into the estimate we have given of the Catholic expenditures for school purposes. In that year New York City paid to the state as its proportion of school tax $455,088.27; out of which it received back by apportionment $242,280.04, a little more than one half, the rest being its contribution to the counties; at the same time the city raised for its own schools nearly $2,500,000; being the ten-dollar tax for each scholar taught, and the one twentieth of one per cent of the valuation of the real and personal property of the city. From this our readers will gather some idea of what popular education can cost, even with the best management.
It is well known that the Catholic people, through their church organizations, and by the unpaid assistance of their religious orders, such as the Christian Brothers, possess peculiar advantages, which enable them to conduct the largest and best-arranged schools at the smallest possible cost. Why will not the state permit us to do it? Or, rather, why will not the state do us the justice to reimburse the actual expenses which we make in doing it? For it is a thing which we have already accomplished to a great extent. Suppose that the city of New York was now educating the nineteen thousand children who attend our schools; at $19.75 each, it would cost $375,250; or at $8.50 each it would cost $161,500, this last sum being sixty thousand dollars more than we pay for the same! We have shown, however, that this calculation cannot be made to rest upon the basis given by the board, when you come to institute a comparison between the expenditures for the public schools and for ours. We are willing, nevertheless, to rest our claim even upon such a contrast as those figures show; and we ask the tax-payers of New York whether they are willing to follow the lead of our adversaries and add a few hundred thousand dollars extra to the annual taxes, for the satisfaction of doing us injustice?
It is universally conceded that the school-rooms of New York are dangerously over-crowded; and the Board of Education finds it almost impossible to meet the growing necessities of the city. There are still thousands of Catholics and Protestants unprovided for. Give us the means, and we will speedily see that there is no Catholic child in New York left without the opportunity of education. We will do this upon the strictest terms of accountability to the state. We will conduct our schools up to the highest standard that our legislators may think proper to adopt for the regulation of the public school system. We shall never shrink from the most rigid official scrutiny and inspection. We shall only ask that, whilst we literally follow the requirements of the state as to the course of secular education, we shall not be required to place in the hands of our children books that are hostile to their faith, or to omit giving to their young souls that spiritual food which we deem to be essential for eternal life.
In all sincerity and truth we must say, that we have not yet heard an argument which could shake our faith in the justice of our cause; and that it will ultimately prevail, by the blessing of Providence, we cannot possibly doubt; for, we have an abiding confidence in the integrity and generosity of the American people.
The Omnibus Two Hundred Years Ago.
"I allays thought till to-day," remarked elegant John Thomas to Jeames, as they were clinging to the back of their mistress's carriage during a shopping drive in Bond street, London, "that them 'air nuisances the 'busses was inwented in this 'ear nineteen centry."