Now, what is it that Catholics complain of, except that the state has supported, and does support, “institutions of learning” mixed “with sectarian, pagan, and atheistical dogmas”?
There is no doubt about this fact. Protestants insist upon having the Bible read in the public schools, lest they become irreligious. Catholics maintain that the version used is garbled, and that, even if it were not, no one has a right to teach it, except those who have compiled it, and are to-day the only responsible witnesses to its true meaning. The Jews maintain that the New Testament part of it is not true. Infidels deny it altogether. What right has any school board, or any other purely human institution to decide this controversy; and what right has any man under the Constitution to enforce his religious views or his denial of religion upon others? It is an outrage. It is an inconsistency, which cannot be stated in any terms without transparently manifesting its absurdity. Under the Constitution, and according to the spirit of our government, all men are equal. Under the present system of common schools, and, according to the spirit of those who uphold them, men are not equal, and there is no such thing as regard for conscience; but every majority has a right to enforce upon any minority, no matter how large, its peculiar ideas of instruction, involving, as this always does, the question of religion itself. We have repeated our protest, until we are almost sick and tired of hearing the outrage mentioned; we have never seen our position manfully approached within beat of drum; and, yet, we have constantly been forced to ask ourselves, “Will the American people never see this? Can it be that our enemies are, as some of them hold themselves to be, totally depraved?”
Some time ago, after considerable agitation, the Chicago School Board prohibited the reading of the Sacred Scriptures in the public schools of that city.
Undoubtedly the protest of Catholics had something to do with this. But the action of the board was certainly based upon the idea, that the reading of the Protestant Bible made the schools Protestant, “sectarian” institutions, and therefore unjust towards all other religious bodies. Let it be thoroughly understood, that we fully appreciate the desire of our Protestant fellow-citizens, to hallow secular instruction. But the reading of the Scriptures as a public ceremony is as distinctive to them, as the celebration of Mass would be to Catholics. No one can evade the argument which forces this conclusion. “Such schemes are glass; the very sun shines through them.” And yet it is not a little remarkable, how slowly the light breaks in upon the seat of the delusion.
It is a satisfaction, however, to note the few acknowledgments, tardy and incomplete as they are, of the principle which we have always maintained. Prof. Swing, alluding to the action of the Chicago School Board to which we have referred, gives voice to the following observations of common sense:
“The government has no more right to teach the Bible than it has to teach the Koran. My idea is that the government did, in its earlier life, run according to a sort of Christian common law; but now the number of Jews, Catholics, and infidels has become so greatly increased, the government has to base itself squarely upon its constitutional idea that all men are religiously equal. Even if the genius of the country permitted the teaching of the Bible, I should doubt the propriety of continuing the custom, because no valuable moral results can ever come from reading a few verses hurriedly in a school-house, and social strifes will be continually springing up out of the practice.”
The government, then, according to the professor, has no rights in the spiritual domain—a proposition which we have been condemned to universal derision for maintaining, and yet one that is self-evident to any person who will pause for a moment to consider our institutions.
An ardent advocate of what are called liberal principles, commenting upon the position of Prof. Swing, very properly styles it the only one defensible. The purpose of the Liberal League is, unquestionably, to procure the complete secularization of our public schools, which would, of course, be as unjust towards Catholic tax-payers as any other system. This class is no less hostile to justice and true liberty than any other set of meddlers. Nevertheless, it is not a little amusing to see the unmistakable fear with which it regards the issue of the present anti-Catholic policy. It waves, as its flag of hostility to the Catholics, the threadbare pretext, that we are secretly opposed to all education. It is not necessary for us to repeat the indignant denial and protest, with which we have ever met this gratuitous calumny. We quote from the Boston Index of Oct. 28:
“The public-school system is to-day in the greatest danger, not so much from the fact that it is openly attacked from without by the Catholics, as from the fact that a great inherent injustice to all non-Protestants is made part and parcel of it by its distinctively Protestant character. What is built on wrong is built on the sand; and our school system will certainly fall in ruins by and by, unless it can be grounded on equal justice to all.”
When the avowed heathen, who reap the fullest harvest, fear for the destruction of our present unjust system of education, on the ground that it is too iniquitous to last, is it not time, for people who call themselves Christians, to give a moment’s heed to the petition, which we have for years addressed to them, as most advantageous to all of us, and as doing injustice to none?