Part 12 (1/2)

Now the Christian school is the place and the provisionof those who are baptized into the Christian faith They have been ht to four things belonging to thehts are secondary They have a right to the knowledge of their faith; to the training of their conscience by the knowledge of God's corace; and to a moral formation, founded on the precepts and exa, by a Divine right, to the child of the poorest working uards the inheritance of lands and titles to the child of the rich A child of God, and an heir to the kingdoher title; and his claie But the school is the place and the provision for the insuring of these four vital parts of his right to the Christian child They cannot be taught or learned elsewhere; there is no other place of systematic and sufficient formation And if so, then the school becohts of parents, and of the inheritance of their children The school is strictly a court of the Temple, a porch outside the Sanctuary It cannot be separated from the Church It was created by the Church, and the Church created it for its own mission to its children As the Church cannot surrender to any power on earth the formation of its own children, so it cannot surrender to any the direction of its own schools

It was the Church, as I have shown in the second chapter, that gave life and being to Christian education; and education uardianshi+p of the Church, if it will not cease to be Christian

History shows us that it is the Church that has civilized the nations, and it is the Church that keeps the was not diffused anorance, made ht by showing to man the infinite, the eternal destiny that awaited hiht--this ”freedom of the children of God”--is the very foundation, the very lifespring of civilization The Catholic Church, then, far froreat andopposed to the Pagan system of education adopted in the Public Schools of this country

It is clear that this plan takes away the right of parents, whoed with the care of their children, and it ehts of the Church, to whoave the coovernion, the teaching they give overns which do not appertain to thelect, or carry on badly, the great temporal affairs which it is their duty to attend to In the last place, experience shows that education carried on by the State is ues and frauds To confirm all these observations, it is sufficient to refer to France, where State influence has been supreme for the last seventy years in university education, and where the Government has exercised an exorbitant control over every branch of public instruction What has been the result?

Literature has fallen away, the nue has decayed, whilst moral corruption has penetrated the heart of the country, and infidelity of the worst kind has been patronized and encouraged ahest honors have been decreed to Littres and Renans, and other decided enemies of Jesus Christ May we not read the condes in the lurid fla Capital of modern civilization? Now, is it not clear that the primary object of education must be frustrated in the ions in the sa in the class hours that could offend any of these discordant elements? If there be a Jew in the school, you cannot speak of the Gospel; if there be a Mahorading doctrines of the Koran; due respectof Arians and Socinians, who deny the Trinity of persons in God, and the Divinity of Christ; and to the opinions of Calvinists and Lutherans, of Methodists and other sectaries, who assail alion In this case, how can the atious; and norance both of the dogion?

This result may not be unacceptable to those who are outside the Catholic Church, because, not acknowledging any Divine authority to guide or rule them, they have no certainty in doctrinal matters, and they do not attach any importance to external discipline But how different is the case with Catholics! We have many distinctive doctrines, such as the Real Presence in the Blessed Eucharist, the power of rein of the Church, and the primacy and infallibity of the Pope, all which it is our duty to learn and to believe We are also bound to observe n of the Cross, to go to confession, to fast and abstain, and to obey other commandments of the Church If these doctrines, so sublience of man, be not continually inculcated on the mind of a child, how can he know theht? And if the practices referred to be not frequently urged on his attention, will he not ignore or neglect them because they are hard to flesh and blood? And ill be the case where the Protestant pupils in a school are in a considerable ion? Will not the Protestant children turn the doctrines and practices of the Catholics into ridicule? And will not the exaestures of the heterodox master, especially if he be kind and friendly, produce ierous to belief on the youthful Catholichow his master, to whom he looks up with respect, is accustomed to act, will easily persuade hi to confession, or fasting, orworks of mortification? Indeed, the probability is that Catholics educated in such circuether, will be only lukewarerous members of the Church

And here let erous tendency of Godless education In this systeions, true or false, are treated with equal respect; not only Anglicans and Presbyterians, but Wesleyans and Plymouth Brothers, and the followers of every other small and miserable sect that has started into existence inof equality with the true Catholic Church, which traces its origin back to its Divine Founder, has existed in every age, defied the fury of persecution and the ravages of time, and numbers under its sceptre two hundred millions of faithful children spread over the world

And is not this to proclaiht and darkness, no preference to be given to Christ over Belial, to truth over heresy, and error and infidelity? In a word, is not this to teach indifference to religion, or, what is equivalent, that no religion is necessary? What shall I now say of books so coencies of Godless education? Have they not the saion? No religious dog, no inculcation of pious practices, no reat and sublime mysteries of Catholicity can be ads should be said offensive to any sect that sends children to the school This suppression of Catholic truth is most detrimental to our poor Catholic children, many of whom never read any books except those which they use in school, and learn nothing except what they meet with in those books, or hear froreat evil for Catholics to be brought up in ignorance, not only of the doctrines, but also of the history of the Church to which they belong, and of the life and deeds of so many Christian heroes whose virtues illustrated the world?

How far superior is the system of the Christian Brothers, and other Catholic educational institutions! Their books ion, they depict the glories of the Church, the majesties of the Apostolic See, and continually inflaood works, by proposing to them the lives and virtues of holy ious duties, of the end of reat ard to this matter, I shall enerally compiled by Protestants, that scarcely any extract from Catholic authors is admitted in them, that they contain e is that of the Protestant Bible, and that they contain ion

Do you want to see what ion--can do? Read the history of the last eighty years in Paris You have there one sieneration, without God in the world And why? Because, without Christian education First, an atheistical revolution; next, an e philosophy and a reckless indifferentised in name and in form, but not in practice, nor in spirit The Church, trammelled by protection, her spiritual action faint and paralyzed, could not penetrate theher salutary influence to bear upon theht nobly for Christian freedohty years the rown up without God and without Christ in the world These outbursts of horror, strife, outrage, sacrilege, bloodshed, are the harvest reaped from the rank soil in which such seed was cast All this is true But how did souls created to the irow up in such a state? They were robbed: robbed before they were born; robbed of their inheritance, and reared up in an education without Christianity Let this be a warning to ourselves! We are told that a child ht to read, and to write, and to spell, and to sum, without Christianity Who denies it? But what does this row up? The formation of the will and heart and character, the for, and the writing, and the spelling, and the suy, astrono nay, will not teach our children the respect, love, and obedience due to parents They will not teach thehtest ornament of woman, and renders the relation of man with his fellow-man harmonious and pleasant They will not teach them industry and purity, which insure peace and happiness in the family circle They will not teach them the fidelity which the espoused owe to each other, nor the obligations contracted by parents towards their children, nor will they teach them to know, love, and serve God in this world, in order to be happy with Him forever in the next

For fifteen hundred years Christians served God and loved e; and we, because we have it so profusely, are forgetting the deeper and diviner lessons The tradition of Christian education in this country is, as yet, unbroken

It has, however, been greatly undermined It will be completely broken if we Catholics do not strive, to the best of our power, to preserve it

We Catholics, therefore, believe that it is ourup our children in ”the discipline and correction of the Lord” We hold that it is our ation to bequeath to our children the ious iious education We hold that religious education is the most essential part of instruction

Noe know that religious education _is not_, and cannot, be given in our present school systenores religion altogether, or teaches principles which are false and dangerous; and if it gives any religious education, it consists eneralities, and is often worse than no education at all Instruction without religion, is like a shi+p without a coreat evil; but of the two evils, it is even better, in sonorant, than to acquire ; for without religion they grow up a burden to themselves, and a pest to society

Hu passions, especially in youth, need religious influence to check the the child's _head_ and for, and arith man to control his passions, and to practise virtue Such instruction ans, but it will never do for Catholics

We can say that, so far as our Catholic children are concerned, the workings of our Public School systehly detrily has the conviction of this been impressed upon the minds both of the pastors and parents, that most strenuous efforts, and even enormous sacrifices have been made, and continue to be made, in order to establish and support Catholic parochial schools In many cities of the Union there is, at the present e nuhteen and twenty thousand children The annual expense for the maintenance of these schools does not fall short of one hundred thousand dollars; while the amount expended for the purchase of lots, and the erection of proper school buildings, etc, considerably exceeds a million

The Catholics of New York subscribed, in 1868, 132,000 for the support of their own school, and, besides, they had contributed a million and a quarter of dollars for the sites and the buildings of Catholic schools

Nothing but the deepest sense of the ious and moral principles of the children are exposed, could prompt Catholic parents to make such pecuniary sacrifices, or assume such onerous burdens; for it has to be borne in h conscientious motives, to support their own schools, they have, at the same time, to bear their share of the taxation imposed for the support of the Public Schools

All this is true; yet I can scarcely refrain froy h and low places, regarding a duty, the chief one incumbent upon them as members of the family, as citizens, as Christians and as Catholics

Now the cause for the indifference existing a our people on the question of Catholic education, ue: it will cost money True; but it is not by _State_ aid, or _City_ aid, that the work of Catholic daily instruction and education in parochial schools is to be carried on These schools are to be supported, as our _churches_ are, by the alms of the faithful

The Catholics of other countries have their duties to perforreat self-sacrifice We, too, except we be ”bastards, and not sons,” , is that of supporting a good Catholic education In neglecting Catholic education, we lose that which money cannot buy Can we conceive of a parent, a Catholic parent, so cruel, so depraved, and so God-forsaken as to sacrifice his child, both body and soul, and devote hierness to spare the paltry pence that a proper education ht cost? It seems quite certain that if ait for just appropriations from the State before we shoulder the burden ourselves, wait for it to compel us to accept of Catholic education, we shall find ourselves in a very unfit condition to appreciate the favor; and froeneration, at least, is likely to pass away before such interest will be manifested in our behalf

Noe ht up in unbelief, and the course of tradition to be once interrupted, the following generations will fall into a darkness and ignorance worse than that of Paganis this world without any consoling hope of a blessed io, with an unhappy wretch, the child of parents that had forgotten the law of their God, and sent her to one of the Public Schools in a town on the North River She played the harlot, when she grew old enough, and then sought to add to this the crime of a horrible _murder_--the murder of the child that was of her own flesh and blood In procuring its murder, she lost her own life In the den of the , one of the vile attendants now declares that she shrieked and begged for a Catholic priest The Jew into whose ripe she had put herself, found so a priest God will keep His word! He has said, ”Because _thou_ hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will _forget thy children_!”