Public School Education
by Michael Müller · English · Gutenberg #28036 · 520,516 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Public School Education
Author: Michael Müller
Release date: February 9, 2009 [eBook #28036]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
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PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION
BY
MICHAEL MUeLLER, C.S.S.R.,
_Priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer._
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY PATRICK DONAHOE,
19 FRANKLIN STREET.
1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
PATRICK DONAHOE,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 7
CHAPTER II.
EDUCATION--ITS OBJECT AND NECESSITY 17
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 41
CHAPTER IV.
EXPOSE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 75
CHAPTER V.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
ON THE MALE PORTION OF SOCIETY 82
CHAPTER VI.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
ON THE FEMALE PORTION OF SOCIETY 87
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER? 110
CHAPTER VIII.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
CONTINUED 128
CHAPTER IX.
THE STATE.--ITS USURPATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL
RIGHTS.--ITS INCOMPETENCY TO EDUCATE 139
CHAPTER X.
THE STATE A ROBBER.--VIOLATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION
AND COMMON LAW 163
CHAPTER XI.
REMEDY FOR THE DIABOLICAL SPIRIT AND THE CRIMES
IN OUR COUNTRY 189
CHAPTER XII.
THE DENOMINATIONAL SYSTEM ALONE SATISFIES THE
WANTS OF ALL, AND CAN SAVE THE REPUBLIC 233
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CATHOLIC PRIEST ON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 296
CHAPTER XIV.
ANSWERS TO OBJECTIONS 340
CHAPTER XV.
ZEAL OF THE PRIEST FOR THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION OF
OUR CHILDREN 373
PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
American fellow-citizens--America is my home! I have no other country.
After my God and my religion, my country is the dearest object of my
life! I love my country as dearly as any one else can. It is this love
that makes my heart bleed when I call to mind the actual state of
society in our country, and the principles that prevail everywhere. It
is indeed but too true that we live in a most anti-Christian age;
principles are disregarded, and iniquity is held in veneration. We see
nothing but confusion in religion, in government, in the family circle.
Sects spring up and swarm like locusts, destroying not only revealed
religion, but rejecting even the law of nature. Fraud, theft, and
robbery are practised almost as a common trade. The press justifies
rebellion, secret societies, and plots for the overthrow of established
governments. The civil law, by granting divorce, has broken the family
tie. Children are allowed to grow up in ignorance of true religious
principles, and thereby become regardless of their parents. The number
of apostates from Christianity is on the increase, at least in the
rising generation. Current literature is penetrated with the spirit of
licentiousness, from the pretentious quarterly to the arrogant and
flippant daily newspaper, and the weekly and monthly publications are
mostly heathen or maudlin. They express and inculcate, on the one hand,
stoical, cold, and polished pride of mere intellect, or on the other,
empty and wretched sentimentality. Some employ the skill of the engraver
to caricature the institutions and offices of the Christian religion,
and others to exhibit the grossest forms of vice, and the most
distressing scenes of crime and suffering. The illustrated press has
become to us what the amphitheatre was to the Romans when men were
slain, women were outraged, and Christians given to the lions to please
a degenerate populace. The number of the most unnatural crimes is beyond
computation. A wide-spread and deep-seated dishonesty and corruption
has, like some poisonous virus, inoculated the great body of our public
men in national, state, and municipal positions, so much so that
rascality seems to be the rule, and honesty the exception. Real
statesmanship has departed from amongst us; neither the men nor the
principles of the olden time exist any longer.
The shameless cynicism with which the great public plunderers of our day
brazen out their infamy, is only equalled by the apathy with which the
public permits these robberies, and condone for them by lavishing place
and power upon the offenders. "The way of the transgressor" has ceased
to be "hard"--unless he be a transgressor of very low degree--and
rascality rides rampant over the land, from the halls of Congress to the
lowest department of public plunder.
The poet has well said that Vice, once grown familiar to the view, after
first exciting our hate, next succeeded in gaining our pity, and
finally was taken into our embrace.
The familiarity of the public mind with daily and almost hourly
instances of public peculation and betrayal of high trusts has created
this indulgent disposition, until at last the wholesome indignation,
which is the best safeguard of honesty, has been diluted into a maudlin
sympathy with the malefactors. And the rankness of the growth of this
evil is not more startling than its rapidity. It is a new thing--a foul
fungus, suddenly forced into fetid life, out of the corruptions
engendered by the war. It is "a new departure" in a wrong
direction--down that smooth, broad path to the devil.
We all remember the sensation which, before the war, was ever caused by
the discovery of a public defaulter, and the indignation which drove him
ever forth from place and country, on his detection. Punishment sure and
swift was certain to seize upon him, if he dared linger after the facts
were known.
A breach of trust was not then considered a joke, nor theft elevated
into the dignity of a fine art, whose most eminent professors were to
be regarded with envy and admiration.
Think of the clamor which was raised over the comparatively petty
peculations of Swartwout, Schuyler, Fowler, and other small sinners like
them, who even found the country too hot to hold them, and died in
exile, as an expiation to the public sentiment they had outraged.
Yet their frauds were as molehills to the mountains which the busy hands
of our public peculators have heaped up, and are daily piling higher.
Within the last ten years, where they stole cents, their successors
stole by thousands and tens of thousands; and, instead of flying from
punishment, flaunt their crimes and their ill-gotten wealth in the face
of the community, heedless either of the arm of the law, or the more
potent hiss of public scorn.
And this financial dishonesty of the times is as true of commercial as
of political circles, and as patent at Washington as at New York and
other cities. "Think you that those eighteen men on whom the tower of
Siloam fell, were sinners above all others in Jerusalem? I tell you
nay!" Think you that those six or seven on whom the axe of the public
press fell, are sinners above all in New York and elsewhere? If all men
that have been guilty of fraud in New York and elsewhere were to have a
tower fall on them, there would be funerals enough for fifty years.
One of the saddest symptoms of degeneracy in a people is evinced by a
desperate levity--a scoffing spirit such as that which inspired the
French people when they denied even God, and substituted a prostitute to
be their "Goddess of Reason." Much of that spirit is unhappily
manifesting itself in our country.
That most fearful picture of a corrupt community drawn by Curran in his
description of the public pests of his day--"remaining at the bottom
like drowned bodies while soundness remained in them, but rising only as
they rotted, and floating only from the buoyancy of corruption"--seems,
unhappily, destined to find its parallel here, unless public virtue and
public indignation should awake to condemn and chastise the corruption
which is tainting and poisoning the air around us.
The judgment which overtook the men of Siloam was visited on them for
sins not unlike those which seem to invite a similar judgment from
offended Heaven upon our modern Siloams, and is no jesting matter. Nay,
in view of the many recent terrible visitations which have fallen upon
different parts of our country, many voices have already been raised
proclaiming them as marks of Divine wrath against national sins,
perpetrated by a people who should, by their lives, testify their sense
of the blessings showered upon them in more prodigal profusion than on
any other nation in the annals of mankind.
That the great body of our people are corrupt, or that they at heart
approve of corruption, no one will be mad enough to maintain. But they
are responsible before Heaven and to posterity for the criminal apathy
they manifest in their silent sanction of the corruption and crime which
are fast making the American name a synonyme for theft, for brazen
impudence and unblushing rascality.
In the life of a nation, as in that of an individual, there are periods
which are critical; and a restoration to health, or the certainty of
speedy death, depends on the way this malady is met. The crisis which
now menaces the life and health of the United States cannot be far
distant; for private virtue cannot long survive the death of public
honor and honesty, nor private morality fail to catch the contagion of
public profligacy. If the representative men of a country, those in whom
its high trusts are reposed, be corrupt and shameless, they will drag
down into the same mire the morals of the people they plunder and
misrepresent. Indeed we want no prophet, nor one raised from the dead,
to tell us the awfully fatal results. What can be done to stem the
fearful torrent of evils that flood the land? We all know that when, in
1765, the famous Stamp Act was passed in the British Parliament, on the
news reaching Boston the bells were muffled, and rang a funeral peal. In
New York the "Act" was carried through the streets with a death's head
bearing this inscription: "The Folly of England and the Ruin of
America." So great was the opposition to the "Act," that it was repealed
during the spring of 1766. This shows how quickly the evils of society
can be put down if people set to work in earnest.
Now we cannot expect the people to set to work in earnest about stemming
the torrent of the great evils of the land, unless they are well
enlightened as to the source from which they flow. This source is
principally that wrong system of education introduced into this country
about fifty years ago. At that time very few, perhaps, could foresee
what effects it was calculated to produce. After a long trial, we can
now pronounce on it with certainty by its results. The tree, no longer a
sapling, can be judged by its fruits. These fruits have been so bad that
it is high time to call the attention of the public to the tree.
Now in calling attention to this tree, I wish it to be once for all
distinctly understood, that whatever of a seemingly or even really harsh
nature I may say in this discussion on the Public Schools, is intended
and directed _solely against the system_. For those who manage or
officiate in them, as teachers or otherwise, I have, I trust, all the
courtesy, charity, and respect due from one citizen to another. If I
offend the prejudices, convictions, or susceptibilities of any on this
strangely misrepresented subject, no one can more regret it than myself;
I can truly say it is not intended. All I ask of my fellow-citizens is a
fair discussion on this great question of education, to look at it
without prejudice, without bigotry; for if prejudice and bigotry stand
in our way, they will stand in the way of the glory and stability of
this country, whose future God only knows. It is the duty of all
citizens to labor with a good heart, a clear mind, an earnest soul, to
do all they can in building up, and strengthening, and making still more
glorious this great American people.
CHAPTER II.
EDUCATION--ITS OBJECT AND NECESSITY.
The question of Education is, of all others, the most important. It has
for some time back received a good deal of attention in public meetings,
in newspapers, and in the pulpit. In fact it has become a question of
the day. On this question, however, there is unfortunately such an
amount of ignorance, prejudice, and confusion of ideas, that it is
almost impossible to make the public understand it. The reason of this
is, because so many follow the vague views expressed on this subject in
newspapers. Many a paper is undoubtedly political, and so far partisan;
and as such its editor will defend and advance what he believes to be
the principles of his party. But the question of education rises above
party politics; yet when you read many a paper you will find that the
editor appeals to the prejudice and passions of party in a way quite
unworthy of an independent journalist, and of the grave subject under
consideration. He advances principles which, at first sight, seem to be
quite true; for instance: "Public School Education is necessary for our
republican form of government, for the very life of the Republic." "It
is an admitted axiom, that our form of government, more than all others,
depends on the intelligence of the people." "The framers of our
Constitution firmly believed that a republic form of government could
not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among
the people. The State must, therefore, take all means within its power
to promote and encourage popular education, and furnish this
intelligence of the people through her public schools."
At first sight such principles seem to be true, and the people in
general will accept them. Experience teaches that the public will
accept, without question, almost any maxim or problem, provided it be
formulated in such a manner as to convey some specific meaning that does
not demand reflection or complex examination. For the same reason no
small portion of the public will reject anything that at first sight
seems to exceed the measure of their understanding. Knaves and
charlatans, knowing this, impose on the public by flattering their
intelligence, that they may accomplish their own ambitious and selfish
ends. In this way a multitude of pernicious religious, social, and
political maxims have come into vogue, especially in reference to the
question of public instruction. Yet on the sound principles concerning
this question of education, and on the right understanding of them,
depend not only the temporal and eternal happiness of the people, but
also the future maintenance and freedom, nay, even the material
prosperity, of the Republic.
In the discussion of the system of education it will no longer do to use
vague, unmeaning expressions, or to advance some general puzzling
principles to keep the public in the dark on this important point. It is
high time that the public should be thoroughly enlightened on the
subject of education. Everybody is talking about education,--the
advantages of education, the necessity of education; and yet almost all
have come to use the word in its narrowest and most imperfect meaning,
as implying mere cultivation of the intellectual faculties, and even
this is done in the most superficial manner, by cramming the mind with
facts, instead of making it reflect and reason. The great majority even
of those who write upon the subject take no higher view.
The term _education_ comprehends something more than mere instruction.
One may be instructed without being educated; but he cannot be educated
without being instructed. The one has a partial or limited, the other a
complete or general, meaning. What, then, is the meaning of Education?
Education comes from the Latin "educo," and means, according to Plato,
"to give to the body and soul all the perfection of which they are
susceptible"; in other words, the object of education is to render the
youth of both sexes beautiful, healthful, strong, intelligent and
virtuous. It is doubtless the will of the Creator that man--the
masterpiece of the visible world--should be raised to that perfection of
which he is capable, and for the acquisition of which he is offered the
proper means. It is the soul of man which constitutes the dignity of his
being, and makes him the king of the universe. Now the body is the
dwelling of the soul--the palace of this noble king; the nobility of the
soul must induce us to attend to its palace--to the health and strength
and beauty of the body;--health, strength and beauty are the noble
qualities of the body.
The noble qualities of the soul are virtue and learning. Virtue and
learning are the two trees planted by God in Paradise; they are the two
great luminaries created by God to give light to the world; they are the
two Testaments, the Old and the New; they are the two sisters, Martha
and Mary, living under one roof in great union and harmony, and mutually
supporting each other.
Learning is, next to virtue, the most noble ornament and the highest
improvement of the human mind. It is by learning that all the natural
faculties of the mind obtain an eminent degree of perfection. The memory
is exceedingly improved by appropriate exercise, and becomes, as it
were, a storehouse of names, facts, entire discourses, etc., according
to every one's exigency or purposes. The understanding--the light of the
soul--is exceedingly improved by exercise, and by the acquisition of
solid science and useful knowledge. Judgment, the most valuable of all
the properties of the mind, and by which the other faculties are poised,
governed and directed, is formed and perfected by experience, and
regular well-digested studies and reflection; and by them it attains to
true justness and taste. The mind, by the same means, acquires a
steadiness, and conquers the aversion which sloth raises against the
serious employments of its talents.
How much the perfection of the mind depends upon culture, appears in the
difference of understanding between the savages (who, except in
treachery, cunning and shape, scarce seem to differ from the apes which
inhabit their forests) and the most elegant and civilized nations. A
piece of ground left wild produces nothing but weeds and briers, which
by culture would be covered with corn, flowers and fruit. The difference
is not less between a rough mind and one that is well cultivated.
The same natural culture, indeed, suits not all persons. Geniuses must
be explored, and the manner of instructing proportioned to them. But
there is one thing which suits all persons, and without which knowledge
is nothing but "a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal": this is the
supernatural culture of the soul, or the habitual endeavor of man of
rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of God by the acquisition
of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his last end--his
eternal happiness. It is for this reason that our Saviour tells us:
"What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"--(Matt. xvi.
26.) It is, then, the _supernatural culture_, or the perfection of the
soul, that is to be principally attended to in education.
Now what is the perfection of soul? The perfection of each being in
general, is that which renders the being better and more perfect. It is
clear that inferior beings cannot make superior ones better and more
perfect. Now the soul, being immortal, is superior to all earthly or
perishable things. These, then, cannot make the soul better and more
perfect, but rather worse than she is; for he who seeks what is worse
than himself, makes himself worse than he was before. Therefore the good
of the soul can be only that which is better and more excellent than the
soul herself is. Now God alone is this Good--He being Goodness Itself.
He who possesses God may be said to possess the goodness of all other
things; for whatever goodness they possess, they have from God. In the
sun, for instance, you admire the light; in a flower, beauty; in bread,
the savor; in the earth, its fertility; all these have their being from
God. No doubt God has reserved to Himself far more than He has bestowed
upon creatures; this truth admitted, it necessarily follows that he who
enjoys God possesses in him all other things; and consequently the very
same delight which he would have taken in other things, had he enjoyed
them separately, he enjoys in God, in a far greater measure, and in a
more elevated manner. For this reason, St. Francis of Assisium often
used to exclaim: "My God and my All"--a saying to which he was so
accustomed that he could scarcely think of anything else, and often
spent whole nights in meditating on this truth.
Certainly true contentment is only that which is taken in the Creator,
and not that which is taken in the creature; a contentment which no man
can take from the soul, and in comparison with which all other joy is
sadness, all pleasure sorrow, all sweetness bitter, all beauty ugliness,
all delight affliction. It is most certain that "when face to face we
shall see God as He is," we shall have most perfect joy and happiness.
It follows, then, most clearly, that the nearer we approach to God in
this life, the more contentment of mind and the greater happiness of
soul we shall enjoy; and this contentment and joy is of the self-same
nature as that which we shall have in heaven; the only difference is,
that here our joy and happiness is in an incipient state, whilst there
it will be brought to perfection. He, then, is a truly wise and learned,
a truly well-educated, man, who here below has learned how to seek God,
and to be united as much as possible with the Supreme Good of his soul.
He therefore imparts a good education to the soul, who teaches her how
to seek and to find her own Good.
Now what is it to teach the soul to find her own Supreme Good? It is to
train, to teach, to lead the child in the way he should go, leading him
in the paths of duty, first to God, and secondly to his neighbor. All
not professed infidels, it appears to me, must admit this definition.
But as very many believe in "Webster," or "Worcester," I give the
former's definition of education: "Educate"--To instill into the mind
principles of art, science, _morals_, _religion_, and behavior.
According to this definition of education, morals and religion
constitute essential parts of education. Indeed, the first and most
important of all duties which the child must learn are his moral and
religious duties; for it will, I hope, be universally admitted that man
is not born into this world merely to "propagate his species, make
money, enjoy the pleasures of this world, and die." If he is not born
for that end, then it is most important that he be taught for what end
he was born, and the way appointed by his Creator to attain that end.
Every child born into this world is given a body and soul. This soul,
for which the body was created, and which will rise with it at the last
day, be judged with it for the acts done in life, and be happy or
unhappy with it for all eternity, is, in consequence of the "fall,"
turned away from God, and the body, no longer acting in obedience to
right reason, seeks its own gratification, like any irrational animal.
Religion (from _religio_) is the means provided by a merciful God to
reunite the chain broken by the sin of our first parents, and bridge
over the chasm opened between man and his divine destiny. To give this
knowledge of religion is the principal purpose of education. Without
this it is mere natural _instruction_, but no education at all. It would
be worse than giving, as we say, "the play of Hamlet with the part of
the Prince of Denmark left out."
Religion, then, forms the spirit and essence of all true education. As
leaven must be diffused throughout the entire mass in order to produce
its effects, so religion must be thoroughly diffused throughout the
child's entire education, in order to be solid and effective. Not a
moment of the hours of school should be left without religious
influence. It is the constant breathing of the air that preserves our
bodily life, and it is the constant dwelling in a religious atmosphere
that preserves the life of the youthful soul. Here are laid the
primitive principles of future character and conduct. These religious
principles may be forgotten, or partially effaced, in the journey of
life, but they will nevertheless endure, because they are engraved by
the finger of God Himself. The poor wanderer, when the world has turned
its back upon him, after having trusted to its promises only to be
deceived, after having yielded to its temptations and blandishments only
to be cruelly injured and mocked, may, at last, in the bitterness of his
heart, "remember the days of his youth," and "return to his father's
house." So long as faith remains, however great the vice or the crime,
there is something to build on, and room to hope for repentance, for
reformation, and final salvation. Faith or religion once gone, all is
gone. Religion is the crystal vase in which education is contained, or
rather the spirit which infuses and vitalizes it. Religion is the very
life of society, the very soul of a Christian State.
All nations and governments know and understand that to exclude
Christian education from the schools is to exclude it from their law,
legislature, courts, and public and private manners. It should, then,
ever be borne in mind that religion, though distinguishable, is never
separable from true civil and political science and philosophy.
Enlightened statesmanship will always accept and recognize religious
education as a most valuable and powerful ally in the government of the
State, or political society. The great Washington clearly asserts this
in his farewell address to the American people: "Of the dispositions,"
he says, "which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are
indispensable supports. Where is the security for property or for life,
if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are
administered in our courts of justice? And let it not be supposed that
morality can be maintained without religion." Accordingly our
legislatures are opened with prayer, the Bible is on the benches of our
courts; it is put into the hands of jurymen, voters, and even
tax-payers; indeed, from its late use and abuse, one might think that we
were living under the Pentateuch, and that the whole moral law and Ten
Commandments were bound to the brows of the public or State
phylacteries.
Indeed, the politics of every tribe, nation, or people, will reflect in
an exact degree their moral and religious convictions and education. If
these are false, the political society will be violent, disorderly, and
abnormal; if true, the State is calm, prosperous, strong and happy. If
these propositions be true, and I claim they are as axiomatic and
undeniable as any proposition in Euclid--yea more so, for they are the
maxims of inspired wisdom--how immeasurably important is a true
Christian education!
And if its influence is so great in determining even the political
conduct of men, it is still more necessary and powerful in forming the
character of true woman--the Christian wife, mother, and daughter. The
influence of Christian woman on society is incalculable. Admitting it
possible, for a moment, that irreligious men might construct or direct
an atheistical State, yet it would be utterly vain to build up the
family, the groundwork of all organized communities, without the aid of
the Christian woman. She it is who, in the deep and silent recesses of
the household, puts together those primitive and enduring materials,
each in its place and order, on which will rest and grow, to full beauty
and development, the fair proportion of every well-ordained State. This
foundation is laid in the care and rearing of good and dutiful children.
The task of the Christian mother may indeed be slow, and unobserved;
but God makes use of the weak to confound the strong, and this is
beautifully illustrated in the Christian woman, who is strong because
she is weak, most influential when she is most retired, and most happy,
honored, cherished and respected when she is doing the work assigned her
by Divine Providence, in the bosom of her household.
It will be admitted, then, that the education of girls demands a special
culture. Generally upon mothers the domestic instruction of the
children, in their infancy, mainly depends. They ought, therefore, to be
well instructed in the motives of religion, articles of faith, and all
the practical duties and maxims of piety. Then history, geography, and
some tincture of works of genius and spirit, may be joined with suitable
arts and other accomplishments of their sex and condition, provided they
be guided by and referred to religion, and provided books of piety and
exercises of devotion always have the first place, both in their hearts
and in their time.
They should, then, from their earliest years, if possible, be separated
in their studies, their plays, and their going and returning from
school, from children of the opposite sex. They should be placed under
the _surveillance and instruction_ of mature and pious women. Every
possible occasion and influence should be used to instil into their
young and plastic minds, by lesson and example, principles of religion
and morality. Their studies should be grave and practical. Their nervous
organization is naturally acute, and should be strengthened, but not
stimulated, as it too often is, thereby laying the foundation for that
terrible and tormenting train of neuralgic affections of after-life,
debilitating mind and body.
A thorough Christian education, then, is the basis of all happiness and
peace, for the family as well as for the State itself; for every State
is but the union of several families. It is for this reason that we find
good parents so willing to make every sacrifice for the Christian
education of their children, and that all true statesmen, and all true
lovers of their country, have always encouraged and advocated that kind
of education which is based upon Christian principles.
Good, dutiful children are the greatest blessing for parents and for the
State, whilst children without religion are the greatest misfortune,
the greatest curse that can come upon parents and upon the State.
History informs us that Dion the philosopher gave a sharp reproof to
Dionysius the tyrant, on account of his cruelty. Dionysius felt highly
offended, and resolved to avenge himself on Dion; so he took the son of
Dion prisoner, not, indeed, for the purpose of killing him, but of
giving him up into the hands of a godless teacher. After the young man
had been long enough under this teacher to learn from him everything
that was bad and impious, Dionysius sent him back to his father. Now
what object had the tyrant in acting thus? He foresaw that this
corrupted son, by his impious conduct during his whole lifetime, would
cause his father constant grief and sorrow, so much so that he would be
for him a lifelong affliction and curse. This, the tyrant thought, was
the longest and greatest revenge he could take on Dion for having
censured his conduct.
Plato, a heathen philosopher, relates that when the sons of the Persian
kings had reached the age of fourteen, they were given to four teachers.
The first of these teachers had to instruct them in their duties towards
God; the second, to be truthful under all circumstances; the third, to
overcome their passions; and the fourth teacher taught them how to be
valiant and intrepid men.
This truth, that good children are the greatest blessing and that bad
children are the greatest affliction that can befall parents and the
State, needs no further illustration. There is no father, there is no
mother, there is no statesman, who is not thoroughly convinced of this
truth. Can we, then, wonder that the Catholic Church has always
encouraged a truly Christian education?
There is nothing in history better established than the fact that the
Catholic Church has been at all times, and under the most trying
circumstances, the generous fostering-mother of education. She has
labored especially, with untiring care, to educate the poor, who are her
favorite children. It was the Catholic Church that founded, and endowed
liberally, almost all the great universities of Europe. Protestants and
infidels are very apt to overlook the incalculable benefits which the
Church has conferred on mankind, and yet without her agency civilization
would have been simply impossible.
The Catholic Church was, moreover, the first to establish common
schools for the free education of the people. As early as A.D. 529, we
find the Council of Vaison recommending the establishment of public
schools. In 800, a synod at Mentz ordered that the parochial priests
should have schools in the towns and villages, that "the little children
of all the faithful should learn letters from them. Let them receive and
teach these with the utmost charity, that they themselves may shine as
the stars forever. Let them receive no remuneration from their scholars,
unless what the parents, through charity, may voluntarily offer." A
Council at Rome, in 836, ordained that there should be three kinds of
schools throughout Christendom: episcopal, parochial in towns and
villages, and others wherever there could be found place and
opportunity. The Council of Lateran, in 1179, ordained the establishment
of a grammar school in every cathedral for the gratuitous instruction of
the poor. This ordinance was enlarged and enforced by the Council of
Lyons, in 1245. In a word, from the days of Charlemagne, in the ninth
century, down to those of Leo X., in the sixteenth century, free schools
sprang up in rapid succession over the greater part of Europe; and,
mark well, it was almost always under the shadow of her churches and her
monasteries! Throughout the entire period, called, by ignorant bigotry,
the "dark ages," Roman Pontiffs and Catholic Bishops assembled in
council and enacted laws requiring the establishment of free schools in
connection with all the cathedral and parochial churches. This is a fact
so clearly proven by Catholic and Protestant historians, that to deny it
would be to betray a gross ignorance of history. Even at the present
day, the Papal States, with a population of only about 2,000,000,
contain seven universities, with an average attendance of 660 students,
whilst Prussia, with a population of 14,000,000, and so renowned for her
education, has only seven! Again, in every street in Rome there are, at
short distances, public primary schools for the education of the
children of the middle and lower classes. Rome, with a population of
only about 158,000 souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482
teachers, and over 14,000 children attending them, whilst Berlin, with a
population more than double that of Rome, has only 264 schools. Thus
originated the popular or common schools, or the free education of the
people, as an outgrowth of the Catholic Church.
Every one knows that to the Catholic Church is due the preservation of
literature after the downfall of the Roman Empire; and all those who are
versed in history must admit that the Popes, the rulers of the Church,
have been the greatest promoters and protectors of literature and
learned men in every age. They collected and preserved the writings of
the great historians, poets, and philosophers of Greece and Rome, and
they encouraged and rewarded the learned men who, by their labors, made
those fountains of classical literature easily accessible to all
students. What shall I say of the patronage which they accorded to
painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and the other arts which raise
up and refine the human soul? Even the present glorious Pontiff, Pius
IX., in the midst of troubles and persecutions, has done more for
education than the richest and most powerful sovereigns of the world.
You will unite with me, I am sure, in praying that he may soon recover
the sovereignty of Rome and the Papal States, and that he may live many
years to defend, as he has done in the past, the cause of religion,
truth, Christian education, and civilization in the world. But it would
take a whole day to refer even briefly to all that the Catholic Church
and her Supreme Pontiffs have done to dissipate ignorance, and to
improve and enlighten the mind of man. I shall merely add that a
Protestant writer, and an open enemy of our religion, does not hesitate
to state that, acting under the guidance and protection of the Holy See,
some of our religious orders, which are so often assailed and
calumniated, have done more for the promotion of philosophy, theology,
history, archaeology, and learning in general, than all the great
universities of the world, with all their wealth and patronage.
Moreover, it is a well-known fact that the Catholic Church has always
fought for the liberty to educate her children not only in the necessary
branches of science, but also, and above all, to teach them, at the same
time, their religious duties towards God and their fellow-men. And who
but an infidel can blame her for that?
Every one must know that by the united efforts of the Catholic clergy
and laity, schools, colleges, seminaries, boarding-schools for ladies
and boys, and other educational establishments, have been erected in
almost every part of the world, and erected without a cent of public
money, which was so plentifully lavished on Protestant institutions.
But, without leaving this country, do we not find in the various States
of the Union magnificent proofs of generous Catholic zeal in promoting
everything connected with education? And have not the parochial and
religious clergy in so many places made the noblest exertions to erect
institutions for the instruction of their flocks? and have not the laity
assisted them in a most munificent manner? All this shows their great
desire to promote the growth of knowledge.
Man is born a believing creature, and cannot, if he would, destroy
altogether this noble attribute of his nature. If he is not taught, or
will not accept, a belief in the living and uncreated God, he will
create and worship some other god in His stead. He cannot rest on _pure
negation_. There never has been a real, absolute unbeliever. All the
so-called unbelievers are either knaves or idiots. All the Gentile
nations of the past have been religious people; all the Pagan powers of
the present are also believers. There never has been a nation without
faith, without an altar, without a sacrifice. Man can never, even for a
single instant, escape the All-seeing Eye of God, or avoid the
obligations of duty imposed on him by his Creator. The Pantheists of
ancient as well as of modern times recognize this fact, although they do
not discharge their religious obligations conformably to the Divine
will, but make to themselves other gods instead.
As there has been a religion and a ritual among all nations, tribes and
peoples, so has there been also a "hierarchy" to teach this religion,
and make known its obligations. These religious obligations constituted
then, and constitute even now, the basis of all popular education
throughout the world--Christian, Gentile, or Pagan--there is no
exception to this fact save in these _United States_ of America.
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Strange as it may seem, it is a certain undeniable fact that there is
not, on the entire continent of Europe, or in the entire world, a single
country, Protestant or Catholic, that upholds the Pagan system of
education which has been adopted in this free country. In all of them
Catholic and Protestant children receive religious instruction, during
the school-hours, from their respective pastors. The present system of
the Public Schools in the United States professes to exclude all
religious exercises. We are often told that this is the American system,
and that it is very impertinent for foreigners to wish to bring religion
into schools against the American idea. Now the assertion that the
exclusion of all religion from the schools is truly American, that it is
an essential part of our national system, is utterly false. So far as
any system of public schools can be said to have an American idea, the
idea will be found to be "education based on religious instruction."
The first schools established in the Union were religious denominational
schools. These schools were supported by the churches with which they
were connected, and by their patrons. Religious exercises formed a part
of the daily duties of the class-room. The early founders of this
Republic were not able to understand how they could bring up their
children in the knowledge, love, and service of God by banishing the
Bible, prayer, and religious exercises of every kind from the school.
Hence religion was reverenced, and its duties attended to in all
institutions of learning in the country. The American system of
education, in its incipiency, and for a long while, was one founded on
Bible-teaching and religious exercises. The present system is
un-American, anti-American.
Now how did it happen that the primitive Christian system of education
became unchristian and anti-American? To make you understand more
clearly the origin of the present system of the Public Schools, I must
first show you how _Secret Societies seek to spread Irreligious
Education in Europe_.
These societies profess the most irreligious and anti-social doctrines.
Among the chief means employed by them for pushing forward their
diabolical principles is _Education without Religion_. The
"International," one of the most powerful of these organizations, has
lately put forward a programme, in which the following points are laid
down as most necessary to be insisted upon in the agitation conducted by
the socialist democratic party in Switzerland:
"... _Compulsory and gratuitous education_ up to the completion
of the fourteenth year of each child's age.... Separation of
the Church from the State, _and also of the schools from the
Church_."
About three short years ago a pamphlet was published in which we find
detailed the efforts made in France to spread irreligion by means of bad
education. The letters of eighty of the Prelates of France are appended
to the pamphlet. Alas! the sad forebodings of that noble episcopate
have been too soon and too terribly fulfilled!
The following lengthy extracts are taken from the late Pastoral of the
Bishops of Ireland on Christian Education:
"EFFORTS TO SPREAD IRRELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN FRANCE--DISASTROUS
RESULTS IN FRANCE.
"'I see,' says the most reverend author, 'that for some time
past the most extraordinary efforts are made in France to
spread impiety, immorality, the most anti-social theories,
under the pretext of spreading education. No longer as
formerly, it is in newspapers and books that religion,
morality, and the eternal principles of good order are attacked
with the most deceitful and formidable weapon of a corrupt
system of education. Under cover of an excellent object--and
here is the great danger, for we are deluded by this
pretext--under the pretext of spreading education and waging
war against ignorance, infidelity is spread, war is waged
against religion; and thus, whether we will or no, we rush on
to the ruin of all order, moral and social. And we, the
Bishops, who are as desirous as others, and perhaps more
desirous than others, to see spread far and wide the blessings
of education, the education of children, female education, the
education of our whole people, for this is by excellence a
Christian work, we are accused of being enemies of education,
because we oppose anti-Christian and anti-social education.'"
The first fact mentioned by the learned writer is the existence of
schools, which are called "_professional schools for females_," into
which young girls are received at twelve years of age and upwards, for
the purpose of continuing their education and learning a profession.
These schools have been founded by women, free-thinkers, who formally
and expressly declare it to be their object to train the youth of their
own sex in rationalism and infidelity. The following incident shows the
impious end for which these schools have been founded: One of the
principal teachers died, and over her grave her husband pronounced these
words,--"I will tell you, for it is my duty to tell you, that if this
funeral is that of a free-thinker" [unaccompanied by any religious
ceremony], "it is so not only by my wish, but also and chiefly because
such was the desire of my dear wife." He adds that she had devoted
herself to "the great work of spreading education and _morality without
religion_, because she had no faith except in _learning and in
justice_; she was of those who, having once seen and comprehended these
truths, can have no other beacon to guide them _in life, or at the hour
of death_." Round that grave, whose occupant had rejected religion and
its ministrations in life and in death, stood three hundred girls,
pupils of those "_professional schools_," holding bouquets in their
hands, and throwing flowers on the coffin of their mistress. The schools
are of a piece with the teachers. Ten hours are spent in them, but all
religious instruction is strictly forbidden, under the pretext that they
are free schools, "_open to children of all persuasions, without
religious distinction_." The founders of these schools propose to give
to the girls intrusted to them _a moral education without ever speaking
to them of religion!_ And this is the system of education which people
are anxious to spread throughout France, and even in this country also.
But, though we hope they will not succeed, can we feel fully confident
that we shall escape the contagion, when we remember that this system is
no other than the "_mixed system_," and when we bear in mind the
untiring efforts which are made to develop and consolidate that system
in Ireland in every branch of education, from the university, through
the model-school, down to the humblest village-school? Read the
description of the schools in France, of which we are speaking, and say,
does it not apply to every school, even in Ireland, where the mixed
principle is thoroughly carried out?
"The printed prospectus of these schools" [continues the most
reverend writer] "clearly explains the advantages of
professional education, while it hides the religious danger
under vague expressions of an apparent liberality, such as the
following: '_The school is open to children of all persuasions,
without religious distinction_.' The meaning of which words is
no other than that in these schools, where children are kept
from the twelfth to the eighteenth year of their age, and for
ten hours every day (from eight A.M. to six P.M.), God and the
Gospel shall be treated as if they never existed; not only
religion shall never be mentioned, but these girls shall be
taught morality independent of any dogmatic faith, any
religion....
"The second engine used by the enemies of religion in France
for the maintenance and spread of infidelity, is the
Educational League. This League has been introduced from
Belgium into France by the Freemasons and the
'Solidaires'--the members of an impious association, the avowed
object of which is to prevent persons from receiving the
sacraments, or any of the sacred rites of the Church, in life
or in death. The Educational League, with a wonderful spirit of
propagandism, has established throughout France libraries and
courses of instruction for men and for women, and even for
girls and young children. On their banner is inscribed 'Spread
of Education'; but under this device is hidden the scheme of
propagating irreligion. The founder of the 'League' in
France[A] was a Freemason, and both his declarations and those
of the organs of Freemasonry leave no doubt of the Masonic
origin of the scheme, and of the spirit which animates it. Now
the third article of the statutes of the 'League' declares,
when speaking of the education to be given by their
association, that 'neither politics nor _religion_ shall have
any part in it.' And lest there should be any mistake as to the
meaning of this article, one of the leading Masonic journals
declares that religion is 'useless as an instrument for forming
the minds of children, and that from a certain point of view it
is _capable of leading them to abandon all moral principles_.
It is incumbent on us, therefore,' concludes this journal, 'to
_exclude_ all religion. We will teach you its rights and duties
in the name of liberty, of conscience, of reason, and, in
fine, in the name of our society.'[B] And again: 'Freemasons
must give in their adhesion _en masse_ to the excellent
Educational League, and the lodges must in the peace of their
temples seek out the best means of making it effectual. Their
influence in this way will be most useful. _The principles we
profess are precisely in accord with those which inspired that
project._'[C] In April of the same year, the same organ of
Freemasonry contained the following paragraph: 'We are happy to
announce that the Educational League and the statue of _our
brother_ Voltaire meet with the greatest support in all the
lodges. There could not be two subscription-lists more in
harmony with each other: Voltaire, the representative of the
destruction of prejudices and superstition; the Educational
League, the engine for building up a new society based _solely
upon learning and instruction_. Our brethren understood it so.'
In fine, that there may not remain upon our minds the least
doubt as to the identity of the principles of this League with
those of Voltaire, we find its founder in France proposing, at
a great Masonic dinner, a toast to the memory of that
arch-infidel; while the newspaper from which we have quoted so
largely, informs its readers that at one of the 'professional
schools,' described above, the prize for good conduct (_le prix
de morale_) was awarded to '_the daughters of a free-thinker,
who have never attended any place of religious worship_.'"
We cannot better conclude our remarks on the efforts made in France to
destroy religion in the masses by means of education, than in the
following words of warning, not less applicable to good and sincere
Catholics in Ireland nowadays, than to those to whom they were specially
addressed:
"Good and sincere Catholics (continues the author of the
pamphlet already quoted), who, deceived by the motto of the
association, have given their names to this _Educational
League_, take part, without knowing it, in a Masonic
institution, and in building up this new state of society, from
which religion is to be banished. Well may the Bishop of Metz
say: 'These persons forget that, like Proteus in the fable,
Freemasonry knows how to multiply _ad infinitum_ its
transformations and its names. Yesterday it called itself '_Les
Solidaires_,' or 'morality independent of religion,' or
'freedom of thought'; to-day it takes the title of an
'Educational League'; to-morrow it will find some other name by
which to deceive the simple."
The efforts to corrupt the youth of unhappy France by means of bad
education in its higher branches, have been not less energetic and
wide-spread. The lectures of the School of Medicine of Paris were
inaugurated in 1865, amid shouts of "_Materialism forever_,"[D] and on
the thirtieth of December a candidate for degrees was permitted by the
Medical Faculty to advance the following revolutionary doctrine,
grounded on the materialistic principles he had been taught: "Who still
speaks to us of free-will? As the stone which falls to the ground obeys
the laws of weight, man obeys the laws which are proper to him....
Responsibility is the same for all, that is to say, _none_." And again:
"Physicians must not be accomplices of the magistrates and judges, who
punish men for acts for which they are not responsible"--pp. 32, 33.
Here we have a sample of the teaching of the School of Medicine of
Paris, not only the first medical school of France, but among the first
schools of Europe. And this sample is, unfortunately, not a solitary
one. The Medical Faculty of the University of Paris gave medals in 1866
for two dissertations, in one of which we find a denial of the act of
creation and of God the Creator, and a rejection of every metaphysical
idea, _as useless and dangerous_; while human thought is set down as
produced _by heat!_ In the other we read the following propositions:
"Matter is eternal." "The action of a _First Cause_ is useless and
irrational--_it is chimerical!_" Again: "It is absolutely impossible to
explain the existence of a creative power"; and "an immaterial being is
not necessary for the production of life." And, "to attribute the
phenomena of life to an immaterial soul, is to substitute a chimerical
being for the hypothesis of machinists." "Materialists have done good
service to physiology by eliminating metaphysical entities from this
study. The idea of the soul, as an immaterial power, is a mere
abstraction; in fact, nothing of the kind exists."
Unhappily these principles, subversive of all morality, are not advanced
by the aspirants only to academical distinctions; most certainly the
students would not advance these theories had they not learned them from
their masters. Hence we find one of the Professors of the University of
France, in Bordeaux, asserting, that "even among civilized nations moral
ideas are so relative, contradictory, and dependent on exterior and
individual relations, that it is impossible, and will always be
impossible, to find an absolute definition of goodness."--p. 38, _note_.
And the "Medical Review" published the discourse pronounced by one of
the physicians of the Faculty of Paris, M. Verneuil, over the grave of a
member of their learned body, Dr. Foucher, in which we find the
following:
"'We are reproached with believing with the sages of old, that
Fate is blind, and as such presides over our lot. And why
should we not believe it?... Humbling and sad as is this
admission, still we must make it: imperceptible elements of the
great social organization appearing upon this earth as living
beings, fragments of matter agitated by a spirit, we are born,
we live, and we die, unconscious of our destiny, playing our
part without any precise notion of the end, and in the midst of
the darkness which covers our origin and our end, having only
one consolation--the love of our fellow-man.
"'This simple philosophy alone,' M. Verneuil continues,
'assuages our grief and ends by drying our tears. By the side
of the half-open tomb we ask, whether he whom it contains
served the good cause without deceit.... If, by his
intelligence or his kindness of heart, he labored in the great
work, we say he has paid his part of the common debt, and
whether he returns to his original nothing or not, whether he
is destroyed or merely changes his form, whether he hears our
words or not, we thank him in the name of the past and of the
future.'"
Another distinguished Professor published, in 1866, _Lectures on the
Physiology of the Nervous System_, in which we find the following
passage:
"We admit,' he says, '_without any restriction_, that
intellectual phenomena in animals are of the same order as in
man....' 'As for _free-will_, we comprehend a certain kind of
free-will in the more intelligent animals; and, on the other
hand, we may add, that perhaps man is not so free as he would
fain persuade himself he is.' And '_as to feeling the
distinction between good and evil_, it is a grave question,
_which we must first study in man himself!_'"
Let it not be supposed that these principles are merely announced as
abstractions; conclusions are drawn from them which must fill every
thinking mind with horror. Eighty students of the Normal School, the
great training institution of teachers for the North of France,
applauded such conclusions in a public letter. Several of the infidel
Professors of the Faculty of Medicine received ovations from crowded
class-rooms; millions of immoral and irreligious books were scattered
throughout the country. Thus Freemasonry, under the pretext of combating
ignorance, wages a deceitful and implacable war against religion. "We
too," says the organ of Freemasons,[E] "we too expect our Messiah, the
true Messiah, of the mind and reason--universal education!"
"It is scarcely necessary for us to remind you, dearly beloved
brethren, that the seeds of irreligion and anarchy thus sown
broadcast over the fair face of France, have already produced a
too abundant harvest of evils, perhaps the most disastrous
recorded on the page of history. All Europe has been horrified
by the atrocities perpetrated within the last few months in the
name of liberty in that city, which was looked on as the centre
of the civilization of the world. National monuments have been
destroyed, peaceable citizens robbed and murdered, the
venerable Archbishop, many of the clergy, and leading members
of the civil and military authorities, massacred in cold blood.
In other cities of France, too, we have seen anarchy and
irreligion proclaimed--miscreants in arms against the property,
and liberty, and lives of their fellow-citizens, often of the
helpless and unprotected; and all this at a moment when the
country was invaded, and a part of it occupied, by its enemies.
The storm had been sown, and in very truth unfortunate France
has reaped the whirlwind.
"SPREAD OF INFIDELITY THROUGH BAD EDUCATION NOT CONFINED TO FRANCE.
"And unhappily, dearly beloved brethren, the spread of infidel
principles by means of bad education is not confined to France. A few
years ago a congress of students was held in Liege, in Belgium, where
infidel and anti-social principles in their worst form were proclaimed
amidst the plaudits of the assembly. In England irreligion and socialism
are publicly taught. Even in our own country it is a matter of
notoriety, that a Chair in one of the Queen's Colleges has been occupied
since their foundation by a gentleman, who, in a published work,
extolled the first French revolution, and, in another place of the same
book, compared our Saviour, whose name be praised forever, to Luther and
to Mahomet! Again: In Trinity College one of the Fellows denies the
fundamental truth of Christianity respecting the eternity of the
punishment of sin; and others call in question the inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures, or of portions of them, and impugn many truths which
constitute the foundation of all revealed religion. In the same
University, too, the doctrines of Positivism, a late form of infidel
philosophy, have a large number of followers. The nature of that
philosophy may be gathered from the following passages in the 'Catechism
of Positivism, or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion,'
translated from the French of Auguste Comte. The preface begins thus:
"'In the name of the past and of the future, the servants of
humanity--both its philosophical and practical servants--come
forward to claim, as their due, the general direction of this
world. Their object is to constitute at length a real
Providence in all departments--moral, intellectual, and
material. Consequently they exclude, once for all, from
political supremacy, all the different servants of
God--Catholic, Protestant, or Deist--as being at once
behind-hand and a cause of disturbance.'
"The work consists of 'Thirteen Systematic Conversations between a Woman
and a Priest of Humanity,' and the doctrines contained in it are
epitomized in the following blasphemous lines:
"_'In a word, Humanity definitely occupies the place of God, but she
does not forget the services which the idea of God provisionally
rendered.'_
"TESTIMONY OF REV. PROFESSOR LIDDON.
"Again, during the last two sessions of Parliament, a Select Committee
of the House of Lords sat to inquire into the condition of the English
Universities. The Marquis of Salisbury was the chairman. The evidence
taken before that committee reveals the appalling fact that infidelity,
or doubt as to the first principles of the Christian religion, nay, of
belief in God, is wide-spread in the Universities of England, and
especially among the most intellectual of the students; and that this
sad result is due in a great measure to the teaching and examinations.
In the first report for the session 1871, pp. 67, 69, and 70, in the
evidence of the Rev. Professor Liddon, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's,
London, and Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford, we find
the following passages:
_"Quest._ 695. _Chairman._--'Very strong evidence has been
given to us upon the influence of the Final School' (the
examination for degrees with honors) 'upon Oxford thought, as
tending to produce at least momentary disbelief.'
"_Witness._--'I have no doubt whatever it is one of the main
causes of our present embarrassments.'
"696.--'That, I suppose, is a comparatively new phenomenon?'
"'Yes; it dates from the last great modification in the system
pursued in the Honors School of _literae humaniores_. It is
mainly the one-sided system, as I should venture to call it, of
modern philosophical writers.'
"697.--'Is there any special defect in the management which
produces this state of things, or is it essential to the nature
of the school?'
"'I fear it is to a great extent essential to the nature of the
school, as its subjects are at present distributed.'
"Again, in answer to Question 706, the same witness says:
"'I ought to have stated to the noble Chairman just now that
cases have come within my own experience of men who have come
up from school as Christians, and have been earnest Christians
up to the time of beginning to read philosophy for the Final
School, but who, during the year and a half or two years
employed in this study, have surrendered first their
Christianity, and next their belief in God, and have left the
University not believing in a Supreme Being.'"
Now what kind of a being is the infidel, or the man without religion? To
have no religion is a crime, and to boast of having none is the height
of folly. He that has no religion must necessarily lose the esteem and
confidence of his friends. What confidence, I ask, can be placed in a
man who has no religion, and, consequently, no knowledge of his duties?
What confidence can you place in a man who never feels himself bound by
any obligation of conscience, who has no higher motive to direct him
than his self-love, his own interests? The pagan Roman, though
enlightened only by reason, had yet virtue enough to say: "I live not
for _myself_, but for the Republic"; but the infidel's motto is: "I live
only for myself; I care for no one but myself." Oh, what a monster would
such a man be in society were he really to think as he speaks, and to
act as he thinks!
A man who has no religion, must first prove that he is honest before we
can believe him to be so. It is said of kings and rulers, they must
prove that they have a heart, and it may also be said of the man who has
no religion, that _he must prove_ that he has a _conscience._ And I fear
he would not find it so easy a task.
A man without religion is a man without reason, a man without principle,
a man sunk in the grossest ignorance of what religion is. He blasphemes
what he does not understand. He rails at the doctrines of Christianity,
without really knowing what these doctrines are. He sneers at the
doctrines and practices of religion, because he cannot refute them. He
speaks with the utmost gravity of the fine arts, the fashions, and even
matters the most trivial, and he turns into ridicule the most sacred
subjects. In the midst of his own circle of fops and silly women, he
utters his shallow conceits with all the pompous assurance of a pedant.
The man without religion is a dishonest plagiarist, who copies from
Christian writers all the objections made against the Church by the
infidels of former and modern times; but he takes good care to omit all
the excellent answers and complete refutations which are contained in
these very same writings. His object is not to seek the truth, but to
propagate falsehood.
The man without religion is a slave of the most degrading superstition.
Instead of worshipping the true, free, living God, who governs all
things by His Providence, he bows before the horrid phantom of blind
chance or inexorable destiny. He is a man who obstinately refuses to
believe the most solidly-established facts in favor of religion, and
yet, with blind credulity, greedily swallows the most absurd falsehoods
uttered _against religion_. He is a man whose reason has fled, and whose
passions speak, object and decide in the name of reason.
The man without religion often pretends to be an infidel merely in order
to appear fashionable. He is usually conceited, obstinate, puffed up
with pride, a great talker, always shallow and fickle, skipping from one
subject to another without even thoroughly examining a single one. At
one moment he is a Deist, at another a Materialist, then he is a
Sceptic, and again an Atheist; always changing his views, but always a
slave of his passions, always an enemy of Christ.
The man without religion is a slave of the most shameful passions. He
tries to prove to the world that man is a brute, in order that he might
have the gratification of leading the life of a brute. I ask you, what
virtue can that man have who believes that whatever he desires is
lawful, who designates the most shameful crimes by the refined name of
innocent pleasures? What virtue can that man have who knows no other law
than his passions; who believes that God regards with equal eye truth
and falsehood, vice and virtue? He may indeed practise some natural
virtues, but these virtues are in general only _exterior_. They are
practised merely out of human respect; they do not come from the heart.
Now the seat of true virtue is in the heart, and not in the exterior. He
that acts merely to please man and not to please God, has no real
virtue.
The man without religion often praises all religions; he is a true
knave. He says: "If I were to choose my religion, I would become a
Catholic, for it is the most reasonable of all religions." But in his
heart he despises all religion. He is a man who scrapes together all the
wicked and absurd calumnies he can find against the Church. He falsely
accuses her of teaching monstrous doctrines which she has always
abhorred and condemned, and he displays his ingenuity by combating those
monstrous doctrines which he himself has invented, or copied from
authors as dishonest as himself. The infidel is a monster without faith,
without law, without religion, without God.
There are many who call themselves "free-thinkers," many who reject all
revealed religion, merely out of silly puerile vanity. They affect
singularity in order to attract notice, in order to make people believe
that they are strong-minded, that they are independent. Poor deluded
slaves of human respect! They affect singularity in order to attract
notice, and they forget that there is another class of people in the
world also noted for singularity. In fact they are so singular that they
have to be shut up for safe keeping in a mad-house.
What is the difference between an infidel and a madman? The only
difference is, that the madness of the infidel is wilful, while the
madness of the poor lunatic is entirely involuntary. The one arouses our
compassion, while the other excites our contempt and just indignation.
Finally, the man without religion says: "There is no God." He says so
"_in his heart_", says Holy Writ; he says not so in his head, because he
knows better. Let him be in imminent danger of death, or of a
considerable loss of fortune, and you will see how quick, on such
occasions, he lays aside the mask of infidelity; he makes his profession
of faith in an Almighty God; he cries out: "Lord save me, I am
perishing! Lord have mercy on me!" and the like.
There is still another proof to show that the infidel does not believe
what he says: why is it that he makes his impious doctrines the subject
of conversation on every occasion? It is, of course, first to
communicate his devilish principles to others, and make them as bad as
he himself is; but this is not the only reason. The good Catholic seldom
speaks of his religion; he feels assured, by the grace of God, that his
religion is the only true one, and that he will be saved if he lives up
to his religion. This, however, is not the case with the infidel. He is
constantly tormented in his soul. "There is no peace, no happiness for
the impious," says Holy Scripture.--(Isa. xlviii. 22.) He tries to quiet
the fears of his soul, the remorse of his conscience. So he communicates
to others, on every occasion, his perverse principles, hoping that he
may meet with some of his fellow-men who may approve of his impious
views, and that thus he may find some relief for his interior torments.
He resembles a timid night-traveller. A timid man, who is obliged to
travel during a dark night, begins to sing and to cry in order to keep
away too great fear. The infidel is a sort of night-traveller; he
certainly travels in the horrible darkness of his impiety. His interior
conviction tells him that there is a God, who will certainly punish him
in the most frightful manner. This fills him with great fear, and makes
him extremely unhappy every moment of his life. He cannot bear the sight
of a Catholic church, of a Catholic procession, of an image of our Lord,
of a picture of a saint, of a prayer-book, of a good Catholic, of a
priest; in a word, he cannot bear anything that reminds him of God, of
religion, of his guilt, and of his impiety. So he cries, on every
occasion, against faith in God, in all that God has revealed and
proposes to us for our belief by the Holy Church. What is the object of
his impious cries? It is to deafen, to keep down in some measure, the
clamors of his bad conscience. Our hand will involuntarily touch that
part of the body where we feel pain. So, in like manner, the tongue of
the infidel touches, on all occasions, involuntarily as it were, upon
all those truths of our holy religion which inspire him with fear of the
judgments of Almighty God. He feels but too keenly that he cannot do
away with God and His sacred religion, by denying His existence.
I have given you the true portrait--the true likeness--of the man
without religion. Were you given to see a devil and the soul of an
infidel at the same time, you would find the sight of the devil more
bearable than that of the infidel. For St. James the Apostle tells us,
that "the devil believes and trembles."--(Chap. ii. 19.) Now the Public
School system was invented and introduced into this country to turn the
rising generations into men of the above description.
_Spread of Infidelity through Bad Education in America; or, The Object
of the Public School System._
Mr. O. A. Brownson, in his book "The Convert," Chaps. VII. and VIII.,
gives us the following information on the origin of the Public Schools
in this country:
"Frances Wright was born in Scotland, and inherited a
considerable property. She had been highly educated, and was a
woman of rare original powers, and extensive and varied
information. She was brought up in the utilitarian principles
of Jeremy Bentham. She visited this country in 1824. Returning
to England in 1825, she wrote a book in a strain of almost
unbounded eulogy of the American people and their institutions.
She saw only one stain upon the American character, one thing
in the condition of the American people to censure or to
deplore--that was negro-slavery.
"When, in the next year, Mr. Owen came, with his friends, to
commence his experiment of creating a new moral world at New
Harmony, Frances Wright came with him, not as a full believer
in his crotchets, but to try an experiment, devised with
Jefferson, Lafayette, and others, for the emancipation of the
negro-slave.
"Fanny Wright, however, failed in her negro experiment. She
soon discovered that the American people were not, as yet,
prepared to engage in earnest for the abolition of slavery. On
more mature reflection she came to the conclusion that slavery
must be abolished only as the result of a general emancipation,
and a radical reform of the American people themselves.
"The first step to be taken for this purpose was to rouse the
American mind to a sense of its rights and dignity, to
emancipate it from superstition, from its subjection to the
clergy, and its fear of unseen powers, to withdraw it from the
contemplation of the stars or an imaginary heaven after death,
and fix it on the great and glorious work of promoting _man's
earthly well-being_.
"The second step was, by political action, to get adopted, at
the earliest practical moment, a system of State schools, in
which all the children from two years old and upward should be
fed, clothed, in a word, maintained, instructed, and educated
at the public expense.
"In furtherance of the first object, Fanny prepared a course of
Lectures on _Knowledge_, which she delivered in the principal
cities of the Union. She thought that she possessed advantages
in the fact that she was a woman; for there would, for that
reason, be a greater curiosity to hear her, and she would be
permitted to speak with greater boldness and directness against
the clergy and superstition than would be one of the other sex.
"The great measure, however, on which Fanny and her friends
relied for ultimate success, was the system of public schools.
These schools were intended to deprive, as well as to relieve,
parents of all care and responsibility of their children after
a year or two years of age. It was assumed that parents were,
in general, incompetent to train up their children, provide
proper establishments, teachers and governors for them, till
they should reach the age of majority.
"The _aim_ was, on the one hand, to relieve marriage of its
burdens, and to remove the principal reasons for making it
_indissoluble_; and, on the other hand, to provide for bringing
up all children, in a rational manner, to be reasonable men and
women, that is, _free from superstition, free from all belief
in God and immortality_, free from all regard for the
invisible, and make them look _upon this life_ as _their only
life_, this earth as their only home, and _the promotion of
their earthly interests and enjoyments as their only end_. The
three great enemies to earthly happiness were held to be
religion, marriage, or family and private property. Once get
rid of these three institutions, and we may hope soon to
realize our earthly paradise. For religion is to be substituted
science, that is, science of the world, of the five senses
only; for private property, a community of goods; and for
private families, a community of wives.
"Fanny Wright and her school saw clearly that their principles
could not be carried into practice in the present state of
society. So they proposed them to be adopted only by a future
generation, trained and prepared in a system of schools founded
and sustained by the Public. They placed their dependence on
education in a system of _Public Schools_, managed after a plan
of William Phiquepal, a Frenchman, and subsequently the husband
of Fanny Wright.
"In order to get their system of schools adopted, they proposed
to organize the whole Union, secretly, very much on the plan of
the Carbonari of Europe. The members of this secret society
were to avail themselves of all the means in their power, each
in his own locality, to form public opinion in favor of
education by the State at the public expense, and to get such
men elected to the Legislatures as would be likely to favor
their purposes. This secret organization commenced in the State
of New York, and was to extend over the whole Union. Mr. O. A.
Brownson was one of the agents for organizing the State of New
York. He, however, became tired of the work, and abandoned it
after a few months."
* * * * *
"The attention of so-called philanthropic men in all parts of
the country, was directed to the subject. In 1817, and the
following years, commenced what has been improperly termed a
revival of education. To form public opinion in favor of Public
Schools, the following means were employed: Public School
societies and organizations were established in New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Lancaster, Pittsburgh,
Worcester, Hartford, Lowell, Providence, Cincinnati, etc.;
Thomas H. Gallaudet, James G. Carter, and Walter R. Johnson,
made great efforts through the press; there were established
the 'American Journal of Education,' in January, 1826, and the
'American Annals of Education.' Conventions were held
throughout New England from 1826 to 1830, in behalf of Public
Schools; lectures were delivered in every precinct in the
States, on the subject of education; there were also
established local school periodicals, as well as others of a
more general character, to contribute towards forming public
opinion in favor of Public Schools, in every corner of the
country. All these means, and the zealous and unwearied efforts
of Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and others, have contributed
towards the success in establishing the Public Schools in our
country."--_American Encyclopaedia_.
This is a brief history of the Public Schools. It tells, in clear terms,
all that they are, and all that they are to bring about, namely: a
generation without belief in God and immortality, free from all regard
for the invisible--a generation that looks upon this life as their only
life, this earth as their only home, and the promotion of their earthly
interests and enjoyments as their only end--a generation that looks
upon religion, marriage, or family and private property as the greatest
enemies to worldly happiness--a generation that substitutes science of
this world for religion, a community of goods for private property, a
community of wives for private family; in other words, a generation that
substitutes the devil for God, hell for heaven, sin and vice for virtue
and holiness of life.
We may, then, confidently assert that the defenders and upholders of
_Public Schools without religion_ seek in America, as well as in Europe,
to turn the people into refined Pagans. They recently betrayed
themselves. They wish, as Dr. Wehrenphennig and Dr. Wirgow openly said,
for an equalization of religious contradictories, a religion and an
education which stands above creeds, and knows nothing about dogmas; in
other words, they wish for a religion of which a certain poet says: "My
religion is to have no religion." The object, then, of these godless,
irreligious _Public Schools_ is to spread among the people the worst of
religions, the _no religion_, the religion which pleases most hardened
adulterers and criminals--the religion of irrational animals. How far
this diabolical scheme has succeeded is well known, for there are at
present from twenty to twenty-five millions of people in the United
States who profess no distinct religious belief. Everywhere the same
effects have been observed. Licentiousness, cruelty, and
vice--"Positivism," or the substitution of the harlotry of the passions
for the calm and elevating influences of reason and religion. How can it
be otherwise?
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Jean Mace.
[B] "_La Solidarite." _(Le Monde Maconnique, October, 5866 [1866], p.
472.)
[C] "_La Solidarite." _(Le Monde Maconnique, February, 5867 [1867].)
[D] Vive le Materialisme.
[E] Le Monde Maconnique, June, 1866.
CHAPTER IV.
EXPOSE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.
It is a fundamental principle of Christianity, admitted even by
Protestants, that man cannot reach his destiny without a knowledge of
the religion which Jesus Christ taught, and which He sealed with His
precious Blood. Now this fundamental principle is virtually ignored in
our present school system, which proposes to educate without religion.
The whole course of instruction is imparted without any reference to
religion, without any of those occasional observations that are so
necessary in our days, and especially in this country, in order to
explain the seeming inconsistencies between scientific facts and the
doctrines of faith. Instruction, to be useful, must show that the
discoveries of science are, as is really the case, evidences of
religion. It must show the harmony that exists between history and
philosophy and the truths of faith. Secular knowledge should be the
handmaid of religion; but no religion, no knowledge of God, is permitted
to be taught in these schools.
Let a stranger, say an educated Pagan, enter one of our public schools;
will he discover sign, symbol or token of any kind to indicate that
either the teacher or children are Christians? Or suppose this Pagan, or
a Turk, or Atheist sends children there to be educated, they can do so
with perfect safety to their Pagan, Mohammedan, or infidel superstitions
or opinions. They will not, through the whole course of instruction,
hear a prayer, a lecture, or a single advice, lesson, or precept of the
Church; they will, as far as the State plan of teaching extends, remain
ignorant of the "holy name of God," or the Blessed Trinity, or the
Lord's Prayer, or the Ten Commandments, or the Gospels, or the death and
sufferings of our Lord, or the resurrection of the body, or a future
state of reward and punishment. _No prayer_ is offered up or even
permitted to be taught to those little ones whom our Lord loves so
tenderly. The teacher is not even permitted by law to explain what is
meant by the term "our Saviour," "our Redeemer"!
Should a child ask, in a reading-lesson, what "our Lord and Saviour"
meant, the teacher must tell him: "Hush! if you want to know that you
must ask somebody out of school! We don't teach anything about religion
here! We have no Lord, or God, or Saviour here!"
In reference to this manner of educating the youth of America, the
Protestant Bishop of Tennessee said some time ago:
"The secular system took no notice of God or of Christ, or of
the Church of the Living God, or, except in the most incidental
way, of God's Holy Word. The intellect was stimulated to the
highest degree, but the heart and the affections were left
uncultivated. It was a system which trained for the business of
life, not for the duties of life. As there were differences of
opinion about Christianity, it was not allowed to be spoken of,
and a knowledge of it was not one of the qualifications for a
teacher. A man might be a Mohammedan or a Hindoo if he were
only a proficient in geography, arithmetic, or the exact
sciences. The teachers in the normal schools might be infidels
provided they did not openly inculcate their scepticism; and,
in point of fact, in the schools which were designed to train
teachers only, a vast majority were not Christians."
The school-books must be made unchristian lest they give offence to the
countless sects of Protestantism. Voltaire, Paine, or Renan may be read
in the Public Schools, but nothing of God.
If our Public Schools differ in any degree from the ancient heathen, it
is to our greater shame and confusion, and to their advantage. They
taught piety to "_their gods_;" we ignore the _true God altogether_, and
bring the false gods of the heathens down to earth to be made the slaves
and instruments of our sensual gratifications. Thus the mind of the
child is, and remains, a religious void; at least, there is but a
religious mist in his intellect. The child even unlearns, in the society
of the school, whatever principles of religion he may have learned from
his parents.
The present common school system of education necessarily begets
contempt of religion. Men trained under such a system learn to look upon
religion as a dress which is to be worn only on Sunday, and to be laid
aside during the rest of the week; they look upon religion as something
which may do very well in the church, or in the meeting-house, but which
is entirely out of place in business, in society, and in the daily
transactions of life. The child has logic enough to think that he is
taught whatever is necessary for his future career, and that religion
must not be necessary, otherwise it would be taught in school.
And what will the child learn, in this Pagan system of education, to
press down his rising passions? What precept of positive virtue does he
learn? What principle of self-restraint? What does he learn in such a
school to make him obedient, honest, chaste, a good citizen, a good
Christian? The common school system proceeds on the principle of
suffering the passions of youth to take any development which fallen
nature may bring about, and then trusting to a riper age for a change
for the better, just as if it were possible "to gather grapes of briars,
or figs of thorns."
In these Public Schools the whole education of children is directed to
the cultivation of their heads or intellectual faculties alone. The
heart, with all its moral and mysterious emotions, is entirely
neglected. Every mental power and acquirement is intended and directed
to promote their prosperity, success, and happiness in this life; at
least this is what is sought and promised as the reward of study and
application. They are constantly presented with the bright side of the
world. Scientific knowledge, they are taught, will do away with the old
drudgery of labor, and bring the acquirement of wealth and honor within
the reach of all, no matter how poor or humble the condition of their
fathers or mothers. They have all, no doubt, read the Declaration of
Independence, and learned that all men are created free and equal. They
have shared the equal bounty of the State in the way of education, and
have, in the language of the day, "an equal right on the world for a
living."
I ask if this is not a pretty fair and not overdrawn statement of the
case? You will bear in mind that all this time the free-and-easy social
intercourse of the sexes is going on; that while their studies and
exercises are strictly confined to dry, secular knowledge, or such other
pursuits as might excite their vanity, pride, or imagination, not one
line or lesson, caution or command, as stated before, is used or
administered to curb or control the natural, I might say inevitable, cry
of the youthful passions clamoring for their gratification.
CHAPTER V.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ON THE MALE PORTION OF
SOCIETY.
Let us now suppose the young men educated under the present Public
School system fairly launched into the world, and, for the first time,
thrown on their own resources. They are all well, indeed
_over-educated._ The greater part of their families are necessarily in
poor or moderate circumstances. Will their learned and accomplished sons
take the humble and laborious trades or occupations of their fathers? I
fear not. We should not expect more from human nature than there is in
it. All these fine young public school graduates cannot get nice
situations as clerks, professors, editors, teachers, etc., etc., and the
professions are all full to overflowing.
You must remember that, as I have said, not one of the boys have ever
been taught the first principle, prayer, or moral duty. They are, as far
as the Public School-training went, perfectly ignorant of the Divine law
as rule of our life; they are, in fact, but educated apes or animals.
How can this young man reconcile "poverty and wealth," "labor and ease,"
"sickness and health," "adversity and prosperity," "rich and poor,"
"obedience and authority," "liberty and law," etc., etc. All these are
enigmas to him, or, if he affects to understand them at all, he thinks
they arise from bad management or bad government, and can and ought to
be remedied by repression or sumptuary legislation. He will be a tyrant
or slave, a glutton or miser, a fanatic or libertine, a sneak-thief or
highway robber, as circumstances may influence him. Think you that the
common "fall back" on principle of self-interest--well or ill
understood--will ever restrain such a one from doing any act of impulse
or indulgence, provided he thinks it can be safely done? He will look on
life as a game of address or force, in which the best man is he who
carries off the prize.
He will look upon power as belonging of right to the strongest; the
weak, or those who differ from him in opinion, he will treat with
contempt and cruelty, and will think they have no rights he is bound to
respect. In power, such a man will be arbitrary and cruel; out of power,
he will be faithless, hypocritical and subservient. Trust him with
authority, he will abuse it; trust him with money, he will steal it;
trust him with your confidence, and he will betray it. Such a man--Pagan
and unprincipled as he is--may nevertheless affect, when it suits his
purpose, great religious zeal and purity. He will talk of
"_Philanthropy_" and the "_Humanities_," have great compassion, perhaps,
for "a dray-horse," and give the cold shoulder to the houseless pauper
or orphan.
The heart of such a man is cold, insincere, destitute of every tender
chord for a tender vibration, of every particle of right or just feeling
or principle that can be touched; on the contrary, it is roused to rage,
revenge and falsehood if interfered with. How is such a heart to be
touched or moved, or placed under such influences as could move it?
Indeed, it would require a miracle! Nay, even a miracle would fail to
make a salutary impression upon such a heart. A French infidel declared
that, should he be told that the most remarkable miracle was occurring
close by his house, he would not take a step out of his way to see it.
Pride never surrenders; it prefers rather to take an illogical position
than to bow even to the authority of reason. Furious, beside itself, and
absurd, it revolts against evidence. To all reasoning, to undeniable
evidence, the infidel--the man without religion--opposes his own will:
"Such is my determination." It is sweet to him to be stronger,
single-handed, than common sense, stronger than miracles, than even the
God who manifests Himself by them.
Such a man is always in favor of _strong government_, provided he can
get to run it. He will talk loudly of loyalty and the "_life of the
nation_." He worships the _State_, because, to his gross animal
understanding, it represents _power_, and makes money his God, because
it gives him this power. Such a man may be called civilized, but he is
only an _accomplished barbarian_. His head and hands are instructed, his
heart, and low passions and appetites, unbridled and untamed. Such a man
can never be made to understand the beautiful and benign principles of
our republican form of government. Like all brutes, he relies on force,
and tries and judges every issue by success. What he calls "_the final
arbitrament of arms_" is to such a one a righteous decision, provided
always it be in his favor. He may affect the demagogue, and talk loudly
about the power of the people, but you will observe that this refers to
them _en masse_, in the whole or concrete. He cannot understand the
individual man as entitled to any consideration or rights (unless he
happened to be made rich) independently of the State. Indeed, he looks
upon poor men as made for the State, and it can be only on this ground
that he claims the children as its property--"children of the State"!!
He insists on educating them by the _State_, and for the State, and not
for the comfort and support of their fathers and mothers, nor that they
should thereby fulfil the immortal destiny for which they were created.
He holds the life, the dignity, the comfort or happiness of the family
or individual as nought in the balance against "_the life, the power,
the wealth and glory of the nation_." "_Perish the People_--live the
State"; this is his motto, and such have ever been the principles and
motto of all Pagans from the beginning.
CHAPTER VI.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ON THE FEMALE PORTION OF
SOCIETY.
What I have said in the preceding chapter is but a faint picture of the
bad effects of what is called _polite education_, as given in the Public
Schools, on the male portion of society. It is with some reluctance that
I am now going to trace the same evil influence in its still more
injurious consequences on the female portion. It is very difficult to
treat this part of the subject with the necessary freedom, not only on
account of its intrinsic delicacy, but also because of that false (and
indeed to themselves injurious) idea that there is nothing wanting to
the absolute perfection of our women.
Let it not be said, that in calling public attention to these evil
consequences on the female portion of the community, we are
overstepping the boundaries of propriety or decency. There is a license
for the poet; a license for the stage; a license for the bar; a license
for the writer of fiction; a license for the press, and why should there
not be a license for a Christian writer? It is high time for _true_
modesty to take the place of that _false modesty_ which has driven
virtue, like an exile, out of the land, and peopled it largely with
Fourrierites, Owenites, and other socialists and free-lovers.
Now, whatever success a "godless system of education" may have on boys,
I think all must admit that it must prove not only a failure, but a
positive injury, to girls. It is not that moral and religious education
is not equally required by both, in a spiritual sense, but that women,
in an especial manner, have certain duties assigned them, in the Order
of Providence, of so high and holy a character, that it requires, in
some sense, a special education to fit them for the faithful discharge
of these duties.
Let us remember that the Public School-girls of to-day will be the
mothers of to-morrow. Mothers are called by God to take particular care
of the bodily and spiritual life of their children. This care is a
heavy, a very heavy burden indeed, and mothers cannot carry this burden
without a tender love for their children. Now God has made the love of
mothers for their children a necessary love. It is for this reason that
there is no command in the Divine Law for parents to love their
children, whilst, on the contrary, children are commanded to love their
parents. Love towards one's own offspring is a love so deeply planted in
the heart by Nature herself, that the wild beasts never fail to love
their young. It is said that even tigers, hearing the cry of their
whelps when they are taken by the hunters, will plunge into the sea to
swim after the vessels where they are confined.
A mother's love is proverbial. Indeed, there is no love so pure and so
thoroughly disinterested as the love of a good mother for her child. Her
love knows no change; brothers and sisters have forgotten each other;
fathers have proved unforgiving to their children; husbands have been
false to their wives, and wives to their husbands, and children too
often forget their parents; but you rarely hear of a mother forgetting
even her ungrateful, disobedient children, whose actions have lacerated
her heart, and caused dark shadows to glide before her eyes, and enter
her very soul. Still there are moments when her faithful heart yearns
towards them; there are moments when the reminiscences of the happy
_past_ obliterate the _present_ sorrow, and the poor wounded spirit is
cheered for a while, because there is still one of the fibres of the
root of hope left in her forlorn breast, and a languid smile will flit
over her wan and prematurely faded face. Yes, she forgives, though there
is no River Lethe for her to drink from in this life; showing that her
love is the most pure in this world, and the nearest approach to the
love that God has so graciously bestowed upon her.
Some years ago a vessel sailed from the coast of Ireland. It was filled
with passengers who were coming to this country to better their future.
The vessel set sail with a favorable wind. The sky was clear, and the
sun shone gayly upon the sparkling sea. But suddenly the heavens grew
dark. A fierce storm arose. The winds howled madly around the vessel.
The ship was hurried on--on, till it was dashed against the rocks. The
wild, surging waves dashed over it. The vessel split in twain. Part
remained hanging amid the rocks, and the rest sank, with those on board,
beneath the waves, far down into the depth of the sea. The storm
continued to rage for several days. At last, when the wind had died
away, some hardy fishermen, who lived on the coast, took a skiff and
rowed out to the wreck. They entered the part of the vessel that
remained hanging amid the rocks. They broke open the cabin door. They
heard distinctly the feeble wail of a child. They rushed in. They found
a little babe lying upon the breast of its dead mother. The child was
eagerly sucking the blood which oozed from a large wound in its mother's
breast. The mother had died of cold and hunger; but, even amid her
fearful sufferings, she did not forget her child. She took a sharp
knife, and, with the wonderful love of a mother's heart, she made a deep
gash in her breast, in order that her child might preserve its life by
drinking her own heart's blood!
And when the darling child of the Christian mother is on the point of
death, ah! how tender is not her prayer to the Author of Life that He
spare the child.
"Oh, God of mercy," she prays, "spare my child! Heaven is already full
of light and gladness. Do not then take to heaven the light and joy of
my heart. Thou art ever happy, O my God! do not then deprive me of my
only happiness. God of compassion, O leave me the sweet babe whom Thou
hast given me! my love, and all my happiness, is centred in him. Since
he has come to me, the earth, and sea, and sky, the whole world around
has grown doubly beautiful. The air seems filled with light, and song,
and sweetness. Ah, do not take my child away, for when his tender body
lies beneath the sod, my heart and life shall lie there with it, and
this whole world shall grow dark and dreary as one vast gloomy
graveyard. O God! remember I am yet so young. I am not used to tears.
Deal gently with my poor weak heart! I have never yet known what it is
to lose a friend, a relative, or beloved one. O God! shall, then, the
first that teaches me the dread meaning of grave and shroud be my own,
my first-born child? O Jesus, I conjure Thee, by Thy wounded
Heart--wounded for love of me--do not crush my tender heart, for Thou
hast made it tender. Thou hast made me a mother; oh, spare my darling
child!"
Ah! who can measure the depth of the wonderful love of a mother's heart!
But this natural love of a mother for her offspring, in order to be
persevering and untiring, must be cultivated--must be ennobled and
supernaturalized by religious education; otherwise this love will
decrease, and be lost in the end, and with the loss of this love the
Christian woman has lost her divine calling. Now as no religious
education is imparted to the girls in the Public Schools, can we wonder
to see thousands and thousands of them who have lost their divine
calling--can we wonder that we hear of a countless number of unnatural
crimes, committed under the veil of marriage, that are becoming so
common at the present day? Dr. Storer, of Massachusetts, declares that
increase of children in Massachusetts is limited almost wholly to the
foreign population. Mr. Warren Johnson, State Superintendent of Common
Schools in Maine, reports to the Legislature a decrease of 16,683,
between the ages of four and twenty-one years, from the census of 1858.
Total decrease from maximum of 1860 is nearly 20,000. Mr. Johnson asks:
"Are the modern fashionable criminalities of infanticide creeping into
our State community?" Dr. H. R. Storer, of Massachusetts, in 1859,
declared that forced abortions in America were of frequent occurrence,
and that this frequency was increasing so, that from 1 in 1,633 of the
population in 1805, it had risen to 1 in 340 in 1849; and Dr. Kyle, of
Xenia, Ohio, asserted that abortions occurred most frequently among
those who are known as the better class; among church members, and those
generally who pretend to be the most polite, virtuous, moral and
religious. And, without mincing matters at all, this eminent physician
boldly declares that "a venal press, a demoralized clergy, and the
prevalence of medical charlatanism, are the principal causes of the
fearful increase of this abominable crime." The paucity of children in
the families of wealthy and well-to-do Americans has been publicly
noticed and commented upon time and again; but the true cause thereof,
if known, was carefully concealed. And can we wonder that the crime has
descended from the highest to the lowest, and now pervades all classes
of society? Statistics have been frequently published to show that in
certain States of the Union, and in certain districts of those States,
the births did not, and do not, equal the deaths; and were it not for
the foreign population among us many of those districts, and not a few
of those States, would be depopulated in a few years. Massachusetts and
New York lead the van in this criminal record. Dr. T. A. Reamy, of
Zanesville, Ohio, in 1867, wrote, that after a careful survey of the
field he was ready to say that "to-day no sin approaches with such
stealth and dangerous power the altars of the Church as foeticide;
and, unless it can be stayed, not only will it work its legitimate moral
depravity and social ruin, but (he believed) God will visit dreadful
judgment upon us no less severe, perhaps, than He did upon the Cities of
the Plain."
In 1865, Dr. Morse Stewart, of Detroit, Michigan, declared that few of
either sex entered the marital relation without full information as to
the ways and means of destroying the legitimate results of matrimony.
And among married persons so extensive has this practice become, that
people of high repute not only commit this crime, but do not even blush
to speak boastingly among their intimates of the deed, and the means of
accomplishing it.
Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Mass., at a meeting of the Social Science
Association, Boston, entitled "Wanted--More Mothers," remarked "that the
increase of population for twenty-five years has been mainly in cities
and towns, and it will be found to be largely made up of foreign
element; and in the smaller villages, chiefly American, the stock has
hardly increased at all.
"We find there are absolutely more deaths than births among the strictly
American children; so that, aside from immigration, and births of
children of foreign parentage, the population of Massachusetts is really
decreasing.
"Another fact developed by report is, that whereas, in 1765, nearly
one-half of the population of Massachusetts was under fifteen years of
age, it is believed that, at the _present_ time, _not_ more than
_one-fifth_ of the purely American population is under that age. In an
equal number of American and foreign families, the births will be nearly
three times as many in the latter as in the former. In some of the old
towns, the records of a hundred years do not show a single instance of
a married couple without children. The New York census of 1865 shows
that, out of nine hundred and ninety-three thousand two hundred and
thirty-six married women, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand seven
hundred and forty-five had no children, and three hundred and
thirty-three thousand only had one or two.
"In the small town of Billerica, there are ninety families with ten or
more children; five of these had fourteen, and one twenty-one: the total
in the ninety families is ten hundred and ninety-three. The birth-rates
show that American families _do not_ increase at _all_, and the
inspection of the registration in other States shows that the same
remark applies to all."
Many parts of Vermont are undergoing a gradual depopulation. Sandgate
had a population of 1,187 in 1810, and 805 in 1860.
The town of Rupert had a population of 1,848 in 1800, which had
diminished to 1,103 in 1860.
The town of Arlington was settled in the year 1762. In the year 1800 all
the arable and pasturage land was occupied, and the inhabitants
numbered 1,569. In 1830 the number had decreased to 1,207, and in 1860
to 1,146.
Mrs. A. B. Boone says, in her book "The Increase of Crime," "I have
frequently heard women say 'I don't mind having one or two children, but
no more for me.' When I first heard these expressions I thought it
merely a joke, but eventually I found out they _meant_ what they said,
and I was amazed. And when these women do condescend to have one or two
children, what sort of a lifelong inheritance are they giving their
offspring? ill-health even unto death. Frequently I come in contact with
women of thirty, and even twenty-five, so debilitated that they are far
more fit for hospitals than to fill the sacred office of either wife or
mother.
"I am sorry to add that the crime of _child-murder_ is carried on to the
greatest extent among the wealthy. In Cambridgeport, a medical lady
informed me that she was continually applied to for this purpose, and
always refused in the most decided manner; but, to her knowledge, one
woman performed, on an average, from a hundred to a hundred and fifty
cases in a week. And yet churches abound in this place.
"The Rev. Dr. Todd has written two most truthful lectures, one entitled
'Fashionable Murders,' and the other 'A Cloud with a Dark Lining.' His
revelations with regard to the determination that the Americans evince
not to have children, is fearfully true, more especially among the
women.
"Speaking of having children, reminds me of a circumstance that happened
some fifteen years ago. I had a letter of introduction to a lady who
wished to engage my children to read at a party she was about to give.
She received me with an air of melancholy politeness, at the same time
informing me that the gathering was postponed, as dear little Fanny was
'real sick.' I saw a wine-glass and teaspoon on the table by the side of
the sofa, which had a small blanket on it bound with sky-blue ribbon,
covering up something that I supposed to be a sick child. I approached,
and gently drew aside the blanket. I jumped back--it was a poodle-dog,
whose black eyes winked at me as if about to cry: a sort of appeal for
sympathy shone in its glowing orbs. I was almost convulsed with
laughter, it was so unexpected. When able to speak, I said, 'Pardon me,
madam, for laughing; but I thought it was a baby.' She replied
indignantly, 'Oh, dear, no! I never had a baby; nor I don't want one
either!' And it would be a blessing, I say, if such women as these
_never_ became mothers. When I was a young girl, and heard people say
they hated children, and saw them fondling dogs, and feeding kittens
with a spoon because the _old cat_ was too weak to attend to so many,
and knew, at the same time, that poor _human mothers_ were compelled
(just as _slaves once_ were) to separate from their husbands and
children when _poverty_ demanded that they should go into the '_Union_,'
or, rather, _Dis_union--I say, when I pondered on these things, thoughts
would flit through my mind, whether, when death severed the body from
the _souls_ of these people, that their spirits were not instantly
infused into cats and dogs, and that they came back in those shapes as a
penance for their _brutality_ to mankind, and their _loving-kindness_ to
_brutes_. However, we never went to the party. The woman remarked to a
friend that she thought me devoid of all feeling, to laugh at a little,
sick, _innocent_ dog!
"Three doors from the rooms I lived in is the stylish house of Dr. and
Mrs. Grindle, where there are hundreds of 'fashionable murders'
committed yearly. And twice the papers have teemed with accounts of the
unhappy mothers dying, and on the last occasion the child was not to be
found, although born alive--and nothing done to either the doctor or his
lady!"
A gentleman of one of the smaller towns of Connecticut writes to the
_Independent_ as follows: "I have just read, with great interest, your
editorial on the 'Murder of Helplessness.' The paper will go into
hundreds of families where the crime is practised, to bear witness
against it; for, thank God, it is fashionable to take the _Independent_.
For more than a year it has been on my mind to write to you upon this
question. You will have the thanks of every well-wisher of the human
race. But you make a great mistake when you speak of the crime of
foeticide as being confined to the large cities. It prevails all over
the country. I dare not tell you what I know--and the information has
been given me unsolicited--in reference to this horrid practice in the
land. I do not believe there is a village in the New England States but
this crime is practised more or less. There are men who make it their
business, with medicine and instruments, to carry on this slaughter. And
even M.D.'s (physicians) in good and regular standing in the church have
practised it. Men are making here, in this highly moral State, $3,000
and $4,000 a year in the small towns alone, at this business. Their
patients are from the highly religious and fashionable to the low and
vicious. Their scale of charges is according to the cupidity and size of
purse of the victims. Delicate females go, in the dead of night, dressed
in masculine attire, to avoid detection, to obtain the means to hide
their shame. The cause of the evil lies in 'lust, which is as near to
the murder as fire to smoke.' The demoralization of the people at large,
in the practice of licentiousness, furnishes a topic of the greatest
anxiety to the philanthropist. When American women lose their shame, the
race is lost--church-membership is no bar. The continence of man and the
chastity of woman is the only hope."
Trustworthy physicians assure us there are not less than sixty ghouls
(gules) in New York City, who grow rich by killing infants. We have
seen the number stated at six times sixty. Those who have passed
through Fifth Avenue, New York, must have noticed a magnificent
dwelling, or rather palace, in the neighborhood of the Central Park. It
was built by a certain doctress who has acquired her wealth by the
murder of helpless innocents.
The unhappy victims of these ghouls are not generally of the low and
debased sort. Most of these illegitimate mothers are of the educated
classes, many of them, shocking to say, under the age of fifteen; many
of them delicate, sensitive females, who make use of these unhallowed
means to hide their shame from the eyes of their friends and relatives.
The number of marriages (outside the Catholic Church) has largely
decreased within the past few years. The crime of infanticide is largely
increasing. A certain species of it is practised in the first families,
and the drugs and implements for committing such murders are publicly
sold everywhere. Physicians advertise publicly, offering their services
to enable people, as they say, "to enjoy the pleasures of marriage
without the burden." At least 25,000 foeticides are annually
committed. How to preserve their looks, and how to avoid having
children, seem to be the chief aim of many women nowadays. In the upper
classes of society, in some of our large cities, a lady who is the
mother of more than two children is looked upon as unfashionable.
The author of the book "Satan in Society" writes, on page 130-131, as
follows: "A medical writer of some note published, in 1861, a pamphlet,
in which he declared himself the hero of three hundred abortions." He
admits, in a work of his, that he only found abortion necessary to save
the life of the mother in four instances, thus publicly confessing that
in an immense number of cases he has performed the operation on other
grounds; and yet, in the face of all this self-accusation, several
attempts at his expulsion from his county medical society have been
defeated, and he is accounted "a brother in good standing" of several
learned bodies, and holds an enviable position in a fashionable church
and fashionable society. This rascal walks unhung; for this the "Medical
Code" is primarily responsible, and after that the "ministers of the
Gospel," the "worshippers" in the churches, the dwellers in "south
fronts."
I have said above that the love of children has always been deemed a
sign of superior intelligence--of noble manhood. Affection for its
offspring is a quality possessed alike by all animals, with scarcely an
exception; and few indeed of the millions of the animal creation seek to
destroy their own offspring after birth, or to so neglect them as to
leave them liable to destruction by other bodies or forces. It was left
for human intelligences to encompass the death of their children, both
before birth and after, and it was left to the anti-Christian
civilization of this nineteenth century also to discover and adopt the
most revolting and barbarous means to accomplish this end. The crime of
foeticide, or infanticide, is not of recent growth. Like every other
crime, it has had a venerable existence, but its beastly development
among us has been mainly the work of a few years. Thirteen years ago its
prevalence attracted the attention of medical jurists in all parts of
our country, and essays, tracts, and bound volumes were issued against
it. But the crime grew apace, and its deadly and dastardly fruits appear
before us to-day, sickening to the moral conscience and religious
sentiments of the nation.
And in view of the alarming increase of this crime of child-murder, the
prediction of Dr. M. B. Wright to the Medical Society of Ohio, in 1860,
will soon be fulfilled, namely: "The time is not far distant when
children will be sacrificed among us with as little hesitation as among
the Hindoos, unless we stop it here and now."
The frightful increase of immorality, of unnatural crimes, in these
latter years, and especially in those very States where the common
school system of education is fully carried out, as in New England,
proves, beyond doubt, that there is something essentially wrong in this
system. Some years ago the public were startled by the shocking
developments of depravity in one of the female Public Schools of Boston;
so shocking, indeed, as almost to stagger belief. The Boston _Times_
published the whole occurrence at the time, but after creating great
excitement for a few weeks, the matter was quietly hushed up, for fear
of injuring the character of the common schools.
Only a few years ago other startling transactions came to light in New
York, involving the character of some of the leading school
commissioners, and some of the principal female teachers in the common
schools. These scandals became so notorious, that they could be no
longer blinked at or smothered, and several of the leading papers came
out openly, to lash vice in high places. The Chicago papers assert
openly that the Public Schools there are _assignation houses_, for boys
and girls above a certain age.
"It is but six or seven years ago that Mr. Wilbur H. Storey, who owns
the _Chicago Times_--the paper, at that time, of largest circulation in
Chicago--published in his paper, and sustained the assertion, that the
Public School system in Chicago had become so corrupt, that any
school-boy attending, who had reached fourteen years of age, was
whistled at by his companions as a _spooney_, if he had not a _liaison_
with some one or more of the Public School-girls!
"The Daily _Sentinel_, of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles,
and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis
also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending
Public Schools in Indianapolis."
And there are but too many cities to which the same order of remark
applies. Far be it from me to say that _all_ the children of the Public
Schools of any of these cities are corrupted. It is marvellous how some
are protected from even the _knowledge_ of vice, in these hot-beds of
pollution. But the _system_ of schools without the control of positive
religious teaching and discipline, tends only to one vile end. We are
assured, as to the City of New York, that smart girls, even of most
immature years, show their discontent at their neglected fate, from
hearing girls only a few years older tell what "_nice_" acquaintances
they have made on the streets, or in the cars, going or coming, and what
delicious lunches they have taken with these "gentlemen" at restaurants
of most unquestionably bad repute. These things I have learned from a
friend who heard them from members of the City Police, and from others
that could not avoid the unhappy knowledge of the facts indicated.
The moral character of the Public Schools in many of our cities has sunk
so low, that even courtesans have disguised themselves as school-girls,
in order the more surely to ply their foul avocation.
Does any one wonder, then, that we hear and read of "Trunk Horrors"?
Does any one wonder that we have divorces, despair, infanticides,
foeticides, suicides, bagnios, etc., and that other class, I fear not
less numerous, but certainly more dangerous, "_the assignation houses_"?
These you cannot "police," or "localize." They, like a subtle poison,
circulate through all the veins and arteries of that society called in
fashionable phrase "genteel," penetrating the vital tissues of the
social body, and corrupting, too often, the very fountains of life.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT IS IT TO BE A MOTHER?
Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be
the mothers of to-morrow. Mothers are destined, by God, to bring up
children for heaven. This is their grand mission. What a happiness, what
an honor for a mother to give angels to heaven! Would to God she only
knew the real dignity and importance of her mission, and comprehended
the qualifications in the moral and religious order that best prepare
her for the duties of her sublime calling! What mission can be more
sublime, more sacred, what mission can be more meritorious before God
than that of giving to the young child the primary lessons of religion?
There is indeed nothing more honorable, nothing more meritorious,
nothing which conducts to higher perfection, than to instruct children
in their religious duties. This instruction of children is a royal,
apostolic, angelic, and divine function. _Royal_, because the office of
a king is to protect his people from danger. _Apostolic_, because our
Lord commissioned apostles to instruct the nations, and, as St. Jerome
says, thus made them the saviours of men. _Angelic_, because the
angelical spirits in heaven enlighten, purify, and perfect each other
according to their spheres, and their earthly mission is to labor
without ceasing for the salvation of man. St. Peter Chrysologus calls
those who instruct others in the way of salvation, "the substitutes of
angels." Indeed this mission of mothers is divine; they are called to
carry on the very work of God Himself. Everything that Almighty God has
done from the creation of the world, and which He will continue to do to
the end, has been, and will be, for the salvation of mankind. For this
He sent His Son from heaven, who enlightened the world by His doctrine,
and who still continues to instruct His people by His chosen disciples.
Those mothers, then, who direct their children in the paths to heaven,
who allure them from vice, who form them to virtue, may fitly be termed
apostles, angels, and saviours. Oh! what glory awaits those mothers who
perform the office of angels, and even of God Himself, in laboring for
the salvation of the souls of their children. If this employment is
honorable for mothers, it is also not less meritorious for them. What is
the religious instruction of children, but conferring on a class of our
race, the weakest and most helpless, with inconceivable labor and
fatigue, the greatest of all blessings? For while the physical
development of the child advances with age, it is not so with the
mental; for religious instruction only can develop the noble faculties
of the soul. The soul of a child, so to speak, would continue to live
enshrouded in Pagan darkness, if the mother did not impart and infuse
the light of truth. All the gold in the world is but dross in comparison
with true religious knowledge.
Our Saviour says: "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little
ones, even a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward."--(Matt. x.
42.) May we not infer that those mothers who bestow upon children the
treasures of divine knowledge will receive an exceedingly great reward?
If God denounces so severely those who scandalize little children: "But
he that shall scandalize one of these little ones, it were better for
him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in
the depth of the sea" (Matt. xviii. 6), what recompense will mothers not
receive who instruct and sanctify them?
Mothers who give their efforts and means to this object, choose the
surest way to appease the anger of God, and to insure their own
salvation. They choose the best means of attaining a high degree of
perfection. Almighty God gives to each one the graces proper to his
vocation. Mothers, therefore, who are devoted to the religious
instruction of their children, must rest assured that God will give them
extraordinary graces to arrive at perfection. "Whoever," says our Lord,
"shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me."--(Matt.
xviii. 5.) Whosoever, then, believes that our Saviour will not allow
Himself to be surpassed in liberality, must also believe that He will
bestow His choicest blessings on those mothers who instruct their
children in the knowledge of God and the love of virtue.
What obligations have not the "angels" of children "who always see the
face of the Father who is in heaven" (Matt. xviii. 10), to pray for
these mothers--their dear colleagues and charitable substitutes, who
perform their office and hold their place on earth. The children will
pray for their mothers, and God can refuse nothing to the prayers of
children, and their supplications will ascend with the prayers of the
angels.
Do you desire, O Christian mother, to be saved? Do you wish to acquire
great treasures in heaven, and to attain great perfection in this
life?--Employ yourself diligently in the religious instruction of your
children. Do you wish to gain the love of our Lord, and to deserve His
protection?--Teach your children to fear and love God; you cannot do
anything more pleasing to His Divine Heart.
It is related in the Gospel that mothers brought to Him little children,
that He might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them that brought
them. And when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said to them:
"Suffer little children to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such
is the kingdom of God; and embracing them, and laying His hands on them,
He blessed them." If Jesus was displeased with those who prevented
little children from coming to Him, what love and tenderness will He not
have for those mothers by whose means they come to Him?
Oh! how consoled will they not be in their last hour, when they shall
see the souls of those whom they prepared for heaven, accompanied by
their good angels, surrounding their bed of death, forming, as it were,
a guard to protect them from the snares and assaults of the enemy!
This is a happiness which those mothers may confidently expect who labor
assiduously to give their children a good religious education. Ah! would
to God, I say once more, that mothers would understand their sublime
mission on earth!
But it is just here that the difficulty lies: how can a mother give the
child these early lessons of piety and devotion, if she has never
learned them herself? How can she train it to raise its young heart to
that Heavenly Father, and ask Him for His continued mercy and blessings,
of whose name or law she has never been informed or instructed in the
Public Schools? How can she impart to her child that knowledge which
she herself has never learned in the Public Schools, and which she has
always been taught to look upon as unnecessary? Can she teach the child
to love God and keep His commandments, to hate sin, and avoid it for the
love of God?--To love, honor, and obey its parents, not from natural
motives alone, but because, in so doing, it would love, honor, and obey
God in the person of its father and mother, and have thus not only a
great reward, and length of days here below, but also the joys of heaven
above? This lesson the poor mother was never taught in the Public
Schools. How can she teach her sweet child that it has an immortal soul,
that God sees even the inmost thoughts of the soul, that it is this soul
that sins by consenting to the evil inclinations of the heart; that when
the child is tempted to pride, gluttony, anger, disobedience, theft,
lies, or any manner of uncleanness, even in thought as well as deed,
that it must call on God and its good guardian angel to come to its
assistance, and keep its soul from consenting, and its body from doing,
any of those things that might offend its good God? All this the poor
mother has not been taught in the Public Schools. The State claims the
right to educate her, and it did not regard this kind of knowledge
necessary, else it would have provided it.
Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be
the women of to-morrow.
The most majestic kingdom for woman to reign in is home. A woman nowhere
looks more lovely, more truly great, more fascinating, and more really
beautiful and useful, than when in her own house, surrounded by her
children, giving them what instruction she is capable of, or devising
some plan of intellectual entertainment. Depend on it that this is the
grandest position in this world for a woman, and this home-audience is
nearer and sweeter to the affectionate heart of a mother whose brain is
properly developed, than all the applause and flatteries that the outer
world can bestow. It is not in the court-room, the pulpit, and rostrum,
but it is among the household congregation that woman's influence can
achieve so much, and reign paramount. This, however, is not easily
understood and practised by women who have been educated without
religion. And it is for this reason that such women cannot make
faithful wives and tender mothers.
Young ladies whose education has been devoid of moral and religious
instruction, whose imagination, always over-ardent and vivacious, has
been still more stimulated by a class of exercises, public examinations,
and studies better calculated to give them an unreal than a sober view
of life, are not prepared to fulfil their divine mission on earth. An
illustration of this truth is the fact that quite recently over six
hundred personal applications--mostly made by girls of from fifteen to
twenty--were made in one day at the Grand Opera House in New York to
fill places in the ballet and Oriental marches of the spectacle of Lalla
Rookh. Assuredly this fact is evidence that the women in New York, like
so many women in all quarters of the land, are unwilling to do the work
which properly belongs to them to do, and prefer any shift, even the
degrading one mentioned above, to honest household labor. There are
thousands of ladies to whom the following description, written by a lady
herself, may well be applied:
"How is it that there is not more nature in the present age, and less
sophistication in society, and that mothers do not teach their daughters
to fit themselves for wives and mothers? For they all seem to be setting
traps to get husbands. Why, the young ladies of the present day are
quite ashamed should they be ignorant of the name of the last new opera
and its composer, but would feel quite indignant if they were asked
whether they knew how to make good soup, or broil a beefsteak, or mend
stockings.
"Above all, you can notice in the young ladies of the present day a
madness beyond description for dress, for balls, theatres,
watering-places, and all kinds of worldly amusements; you can see in
them the greatest desire to appear ladies. They go and spend the whole
day at the perfumer's, where they purchase their complexion; at the
goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days
ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine
hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. The chief mental
agony of the masses of the young women of the present day seems to be,
who shall have the largest possible waterfall, the smallest bonnet, and
make themselves the greatest fright. They do nothing from morning till
night but read novels, and look at their white hands, or the passers-by
in the street. They all seem to be senseless creatures, for their
capacious brain soars no higher than dress, fashion, pleasure, comfort
of life. Were it not for their vain daughters, hundreds of parents at
this moment would have a happier countenance, and not that careworn,
wretched look that we so frequently see when honest people get in debt,
incurred by living beyond their _means_. Were it not for the
extravagancy of young women, young men would not be afraid to marry,
consequently would not be led into the temptations that they are in the
single state, for marriage is one sure step towards morality, and
consequently tends to the decrease of crime.
"Very many young ladies act as catch-traps, with their painted faces and
affected sweetness, to lure young men into the swamps of iniquity.
"I frequently read comments about servants not knowing and performing
their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office
they apply for: _and it is true_.
"In Boston, a short time ago, one hundred and eighty unfortunate girls
were arrested in _one night_; and I doubt not that the greater portion
of them could have _once_ been respectable servants, but considered the
office and _name too low_! Men think it no disgrace to become carpenters
and masons, and it is certainly as respectable to clean a house, and
keep it in order, as it is to build it. And what kind of a name have
these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to?
Generally the world's cold, nipping scorn, combined with ill-health and
destitution. A girl would much rather work in a factory, or a 'saloon,'
because she can be called 'Miss,' dress finer, and imagine she will be
thought a _lady_! Poor girl! It is this delusion, this false pride, that
crowds the streets nightly with pretty young girls, some of whom count
only twelve short summers. With Hamlet, I exclaim, 'Oh, horrible! most
horrible!' I lived in a house in which there was a girl, Annie C., not
seventeen, and she attended in a restaurant. I once said to her, 'Why do
you not take the situation of a seamstress, or a nurse in a gentleman's
family?' She turned upon me in the most insolent way, saying, 'Me be a
servant! That will do very well for Irish, or Dutch, or English girls,
but I am an _American_, and feel myself as _good as anybody_.'
"However, this girl afterwards went as a ballet-girl at one of the
lowest places in Boston; and the last account I heard of her was, she
was travelling with an Ethiopian troop _alone_. Poor young creature!
what will be her end? The truth is, that after a girl is fifteen years
old, in this country, she considers herself a person of _sound
judgment_, and the parents look up to these sprites with a sort of
deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about
the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And
who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian
noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the
plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased in rubies
and diamonds, will only be rendered the more obvious and conspicuous to
those who at a glance can discover the difference--to those who cannot
be deceived, even by the radiant sparkling of these richest of gems."
This sort of women wish to have the "women's rights." They would like,
if they knew how, to turn the world upside down, and inside out. This
great desire among a certain class of women, to have the world think
that they possess masculine power, generally proceeds from persons who
wish to create a sensation, and fail to do so in the station they belong
to. When a woman wishes to go out of her natural element, she shows that
her intellect is shallow, and she is desirous of being thought greater
than her sex generally; while, in reality, she discovers to us her own
littleness. These people seem to wish to be what it is impossible for
them ever to become--"men."
"When God created man in his own image, He said, 'It is not good that
man should live alone: I will make him a helpmeet.' Now, had God meant
to create merely a companion capable of following the same pursuits, and
capable of the same herculean labors that evidently is meant to be man's
destiny, why, He would have made _another man_. But no! When God caused
a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, he took out one of his ribs, and made a
_woman_--a being in EVERY WAY THE COMPLEMENT OF MAN. And, after they ate
of the tree of knowledge, God said to the woman, 'Thy desire shall be to
thy husband, and he shall RULE _over thee_.' And unto Adam he said,
'Because thou hast _hearkened_ unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree which I commanded thee, saying, _Thou shalt_ not eat
of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life;' thus plainly demonstrating to us, that MAN
was meant to _rule_. Bear in mind that God was _angry_ because Adam
HEARKENED unto the voice of his WIFE; and Adam called his wife Eve
because she was the mother of all living. So it is clear to be seen,
that woman was meant to attend to the duties of a mother in caring for
her offspring, and man was intended to labor as the provider for her
whom he chose as a helpmeet, as well as for the entire household. Woman
has natural nourishment sent to her for the babe long before she is able
to leave her couch. Does not all this prove to every thinking person
that woman's sphere and calling are _widely different_?"
The good and perfection of women consist in remaining contentedly in the
place which God has assigned them, and in performing well the duties of
their divine calling. If the hand wishes to be in the place of the eye,
and the eye wishes to be where the hand is, they become burdensome, and
disturb the good order and harmony of the body. Now it is the same with
the members of the social body. If women are in the place, or engaged in
the occupation which God has chosen for them, they enjoy a profound
peace; they rest under His protection; they are nourished by His grace;
they are enriched by His blessings, and work out their eternal happiness
with but little pain.
This truth, however, is considered by many women as one of trifling
importance; they seem not to care as to whether they live up to their
divine calling or not. The Holy Ghost, however, admonishes every one
thus: "Let every man abide in the vocation to which he was called" (1
Cor. vii. 20); for, "Blessed is the man that shall continue in
wisdom--and that considereth her ways in his heart."--(Eccles. xiv. 22,
23.) Blessed that woman who well considers her divine calling,
penetrates into, and admires its greatness, and endeavors, with all her
strength and heart, to comply with all its duties. One of the most usual
temptations which the arch-enemy of mankind makes use of to shake
women's happiness, in the present day, is to excite in them disgust and
dissatisfaction for their divine calling. Hence it is that we so often
hear them complain of their state of life; they fancy that, by changing
their condition of life, they shall fare better: yes, provided they
changed themselves. Would to God they were sworn enemies of these
useless, dangerous, and bad desires! God wills to speak to them amidst
the thorns, and out of the midst of the bush (Exod. iii. 2), and they
will Him to speak to them in "_the whistling of a gentle air_."--(III
Kings, xix. 12.) They ought, then, to remain on board the ship in which
they are, in order to cross from this life to the other; and they ought
to remain there willingly, and with affection. Let them not think of
anything else; let them not wish for that which they are not, but let
them earnestly desire to be the very best of what they are. Let them
endeavor to do their best to perfect themselves where they are, and bear
courageously all the crosses, light or heavy, that they may encounter.
Let them _believe that this is the leading principle, and yet the one
least understood in the Christian life_. Every one follows his own
taste; very few place their happiness in fulfilling their duty according
to the pleasure of our Lord. What is the use of building castles in
Spain, when we are obliged to live in America? "As a bird that wandereth
from her nest, so is a man that leaveth his place" (Prov. xxvii. 8), his
occupation, or station of life. Let every woman remain firm in her
calling, if she wishes to insure her tranquillity of mind, her peace of
heart, her temporal and eternal happiness.
To become unfaithful to their vocation is for women to suffer as many
pangs as a limb which, through some accident, has been wrenched out of
place. They are continually tormented by evil spirits, who have power
over a soul that is out of its proper sphere. They are no longer under
the protection of God, since they have withdrawn from His guidance, and
voluntarily abandoned His watchful Providence. They fall often into
grievous sins, because they are not sustained by the grace which belongs
to the state in which God desires them to be. A woman, therefore, can
never show her superior intellectual powers better than by cheerfully
accepting the calling for which the Creator evidently intended her; that
is, for _woman, wife, and mother_.
CHAPTER VIII.
EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM CONTINUED.
Few questions affect so directly the welfare and interests of the people
as the question of education; and assuredly, in this country, there is
none of more moment as regards the well-being and permanence of our
national institutions. These, our institutions, our prosperity and
civilization, depend for their permanence and perpetuity, not so much on
the culture of the arts, sciences, literature, or philosophy, as on the
general diffusion of the salutary and vivifying principles of religion.
History tells us in its every page, that the decline and downfall of
nations have ever been caused by irreligion and immorality.
Indeed, it is not the State that has made men free, nor can it, on its
own professed origin, keep _itself_ or _them_ free. It has no mission
to reform men or manners; its boasted material civilization is no
civilization at all. For steam, railroads, telegraphs, printing, and in
fact all the arts and natural sciences, have never civilized or
converted one man, not even a naked savage, and never will. They are the
results of civilization, and even then the least part. Nor are they
adequate to maintain or preserve the State. What is called _material
civilization_ is nothing else than _polished barbarism_,--a kind of
monster, with the intelligence of a man, and the cruelty and instincts
of a beast. It may flatter the vanity of modern nations to think they
are superior to the ancients in scientific and industrial developments,
but if they rely on this alone, they are greatly mistaken. I admit the
superiority of the moderns, but not on this account. In the first place,
many arts and products of head and hands have been lost, but even those
that remain are the envy and despair of modern competitors. Besides,
every age must be judged by comparison with its contemporaries. Yet they
have fallen; and antiquarian travellers search in vain for the ruins of
the proudest and greatest cities of the past. The nation and
people--the most gallant and accomplished of all antiquity--who engraved
their names on the imperishable fields of Plataea and Marathon, who
conquered at Salamis, or died at Thermopylae--that carried eloquence,
heroism, and art to a pitch never since attained--the age which boasted
of Pericles and Praxitelles, of Plato and Aristides--perished from
excess of its material civilization, deprived, as it was, of the vital
element of true religion. Without this no nation can live, nor exhibit
in its actions true grandeur, or nobility of character. There is among
such a cruelty, a perfidy, and a beastly lust, which sooner or later
bring on their decay and ruin.
Look at ancient Rome, the once proud mistress of the world. In her
palmiest days, amidst her thousands of marble palaces and triumphal
arches, amidst her innumerable temples and altars, there was _not one to
Mercy_. Nor was there, amidst all this barbaric display, a single
_hospital_ for the poor of any age or condition. The Roman eagle was
carried at the head of victorious legions to the "_Hither Inde_," and
far beyond the depths of "_Hercynian forests_." Conquered kings marched
at the head of subjugated nations to swell her triumphs; the wealth and
strength of the then known world lay at her feet.
Here was exhibited on a scale--the grandest the world ever saw or will
see--the triumphs of "_material civilization_." Yet all this crumbled
and fell before the rude hatchets of the long-haired "_barbarian
hordes_," coming they knew not from whence, and going they knew not
whither, only able to give the single answer, that they were "_the
scourge of God_." Where, then, was the power to save? It was not in
their material civilization, nor in their impotent and terrified
legions. What all these could not do was accomplished by an unarmed
man--Pope Leo the Great, speaking in the name of that mighty God,
unknown alike to Attila and to Roman wisdom. That God still reigns, and
Him it is the State would exclude from the Public Schools! thereby
denying alike the lessons of history and its Christian duty. These
United States, or no existing nation (relatively to the age), has never
attained the point of artistic, aesthetic, social or material perfection
of the Greco-Roman States; yet they fell, as I have just said, to
slavery and ruin, not so much from the blows of the barbarians, as from
the dissolving influence of a _material civilization_, resulting
inevitably in public and private impotence and demoralization.
Only keep up the present godless system of State education, and depend
on it, as sure as effect follows cause, every species of villany and
defilement will flood the land. It is certain that all education which
is not based on religion is heathenish, and must prove destructive in
the end. It will destroy the very people whom it was expected to save.
It will consume them as a fire.
Nor can it be otherwise; for what brought on the "Cities of the Plain"
the material fires of heaven? Or what were the sins and crimes of the
Gentile nations that called forth the terrible chastisements predicted
by the prophets? Why, the self-same pride, worldly-mindedness, ambition,
sensuality, and _disregard of God and His laws_ which is at this hour
taught in the Public Schools. This, I am aware, is a grave charge, but
it is made with all deliberation and sense of responsibility. Indeed,
the ancients were in many respects more excusable than we are. They had
but the Old Law, always incomplete and obscure, whilst we live under the
fulfilment of the new law, with all its aids and graces. Now, if God did
not spare the "Cities of the Plain," if He destroyed the ancient nations
in punishment for their wicked lives and disregard of Himself and His
law, what reason have our modern heathens and infidels to escape God's
vengeance--they who in every respect are more guilty in His sight? Let
the measure of the evil consequences of the Public School system become
full, and rest assured the wrath of God will not fail to come down upon
the American people. The late American war was a great punishment for
the whole country. Thousands of men were launched into eternity
unprepared to appear before their Eternal Judge. Yet this punishment is
only a forerunner of a far more terrible one. The Lord is patient, and
slow in punishing a whole nation, which He may spare for many years for
the sake of His just. Yet for all that He will not fail to punish
private families, fathers, and mothers, and children, if they have no
regard for Him and His law--if they are practical infidels, and give
themselves up to their beastly passions. Let me give you some
instances, taken from the little book "Fate of Infidelity," by a
Converted Infidel.
"You all have, undoubtedly, heard of Blind Palmer, a professed infidel.
After he had tried to lecture against Christ he lost his sight, and died
suddenly in Philadelphia, in the forty-second year of his age. You will
also have heard of the so-called Orange County Infidel Society. They
held, among other tenets, that it was right to indulge in
lasciviousness, and that it was right to regulate their conduct as their
propensities and appetites should dictate; and as these principles were
carried into practical operation by some families belonging to the
association, in one instance a son held criminal intercourse with his
mother, and publicly justified his conduct. The step-father, and husband
to the mother who thus debased herself, boldly avowed that, in his
opinion, it was morally right to hold such intercourse. The members of
this impious society were visited by God in a remarkable manner. They
all died, within five years, in some strange or unnatural manner. One of
these was seized with a sudden and violent illness, and in his agony
exclaimed: 'My bowels are on fire--die I must,' and his spirit passed
away.
"Dr. H., another of the party, was found dead in his bed the next
morning.
"D. D., a printer, fell in a fit and died immediately, and three others
were drowned within a few days.
"B. A., a lawyer, came to his death by starvation, and C. C., also
educated for the bar, and a man of superior intellectual endowments,
died of want, hunger, and filth.
"Another one, who had studied to be a preacher, suddenly disappeared,
but at length his remains were found fast in the ice, where he evidently
had been for a long time, as the fowls of the air, and the inhabitants
of the deep, had consumed the most of his flesh.
"Joshua Miller, notorious as a teacher of infidelity, was found upon a
stolen horse, and was shot by Col. J. Woodhull; N. Miller, his brother,
who was discovered one Sunday morning seated upon a log playing cards,
was also shot.
"Benjamin Kelly was shot off his horse by a boy, the son of one Clark,
who had been murdered by Kelly; his body remained upon the ground until
his flesh had been consumed by birds.
"I. Smith committed suicide by stabbing himself, while he was in prison
for crime.
"W. Smith was shot by B. Thorpe and others, for robbery.
"S. T. betrayed his own confidential friend for a few dollars; his
friend was hung, and he was afterwards shot by D. Lancaster.
"I. V. was shot by a company of militia. I. D., in a drunken fit, was
frozen to death.
"I. B., and I. Smith, and J. Vervellen, B. R., and one other individual,
were hung for heinous crimes they had committed. N. B., W. T., and W.
H., were drowned. C. C. hung himself. A. S. was struck with an axe, and
bled to death.
"F. S. fell from his horse and was killed. W. Clark drank himself to
death; he was eaten by the hogs before his bones were found, which were
recognized by his clothing. J. A., sen., died in the woods, his rum-jug
by his side; he was not found until a dog brought home one of his legs,
which was identified by his stocking; his bones had been picked by
animals.
"S. C. hung himself, and another destroyed himself by taking laudanum.
D. D. was hired for ten dollars to shoot a man, for which offence he
died upon the gallows.
"The most of those who survived were either sent to the State Prison, or
were publicly whipped for crimes committed against the peace and dignity
of the State."
This is a brief history of the Orange County "Liberals," as they called
themselves. To the infidel and evil-doer, it presents matter worthy of
serious reflection, while the believer will recognize in each event the
special judgment of God, which is too clearly indicated to be doubted by
any honest mind. I ask, will the Lord fail to visit with similar
judgments all those who are guilty of the same crimes? Will the Lord
fail to visit with similar judgments all those who, by keeping up and
defending a godless system of education, prepare the young for
infidelity, and all kinds of crimes and iniquities? If the Lord punished
so severely the King Antiochus for carrying away the sacred vessels from
the temple of Jerusalem; if He sent so many plagues upon the Egyptians,
and drowned, at last, the King Pharaoh and his whole army in the Red
Sea, for refusing to let the people of God offer sacrifices where and
in the manner the Lord desired it, what will be the punishments for
those who, by a godless system of education, abolish religion? If God
slew twenty-four thousand men of the Israelites for having fallen into
fornication (Numb. xxv.), with what punishments will He visit those who
add, to the sin of fornication and adultery, even the crime of
child-murder! Numberless child-murders are committed daily in the land.
Assuredly the voice of these innocent victims will cry to heaven for
vengeance, and the Lord will not deafen His ear to their voice. If the
American people will not soon put an end to the godless system of
education, if they permit any longer the rising generation to be raised
to infidelity, the wrath of the Lord, enkindled against them ever since
the introduction of the godless system of education, will fall upon
them. In former times, when the Lord threatened the people with His
chastisements, they entered into themselves, and did penance, because
they had faith, and the Lord was appeased. But our modern heathens laugh
at the very idea of doing penance. So the wrath of the Lord will surely
overtake them when they least expect it.
CHAPTER IX.
THE STATE.--ITS USURPATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS.--ITS INCOMPETENCY
TO EDUCATE.
It is certain and undeniable that two orders of things actually exist in
this world, the natural order and the supernatural--nature and grace.
These two orders have the same ultimate end, though, in themselves, they
are distinct. Nature is, and must be, always subordinate to grace; the
natural must be always subservient to the supernatural. This is God's
immutable decree. Hence religion must always hold the first place in
everything. A system of education that places the natural and the
supernatural on the same level is absurd, and must be condemned; but a
system of education that ignores the supernatural altogether, is, if
possible, even more wicked and detestable. Yet this wicked, detestable,
irreligious system, diabolical in its origin, and subversive of all
political, social, and religious order, is imposed by the State upon all
Christian denominations, whether they approve of it or not. Now the
State has no right whatever to force such a godless system upon its
subjects.
For the right understanding of this most important point, I attach great
importance to a clear understanding of what is commonly called the
State.
_What is the State?_
People in general have a vague and confused conception of this matter.
You will hear the people talk of the "sovereignty of the State," "the
life of the State," "the power of the State," "the absolute authority of
the State," "the paramount allegiance due to the State," etc., etc. Not
only the Public at large, but even those who assume to lead and direct
public opinion, are constantly blundering on this subject.
There is nothing so _fertile_ as an idea; it will, like every other germ
or seed, bring forth in time according to its kind. If it be a good one,
it will bring forth good fruit; if it be a false or bad one, it will
spread its evil fruits over society. Be it one or the other, it is never
barren; sooner or later, the idea or maxim takes form and substance in
an _Institution_; then it operates, in a material manner, for good or
evil.
To illustrate: a false conception of the nature and authority, of the
legitimate functions, rights and duties of what is called the "State,"
has led, and will, if not corrected, ever lead to the most deplorable
political, social, and religious disorder and oppression. As diverging
lines in mathematics can never approximate, but must continue to widen
as they are extended, so a false departure from a political "standpoint"
can never be rectified unless by a return to correct first principles.
This is what is meant by the democratic maxim, "that a frequent return
to first principles is necessary to secure the ends of public liberty."
Indeed, this error, this diverging point in constitutional
interpretation, has been the real cause--the "causa causarum"--of the
late war; and not the "negro," or "cotton," or the "spirit of
domination," or "difference of race," or what not, might serve as the
"_proximate cause_," but the real cause lay far back of them. I am
willing to admit that political events do not always proceed on a
strictly logical order, but nevertheless there is a sequence, indeed an
inevitable chain of cause and effect in the progress of public affairs,
such as we see in individual conduct, but only on a broader scale.
Now what is the _civil power_, or _State_; what its origin, its
authority, its legitimate functions, its rights and duties? Here I must,
of necessity, be very brief. The State originated from the natural
desire which men experience to obtain certain goods, such as peace,
security of life and property, of personal rights and privileges, etc.,
etc. These are goods which neither individuals, nor families, nor
private corporations can procure for themselves satisfactorily. People
therefore unite to establish a State, in order to attain, through the
State, what they cannot do by their own private exertions. The State,
then, is made by the people and for the people. In our form of
government it is a mere corporate agency. Its duty is to see that
justice is administered, and personal rights and property protected. It
holds the sword of justice not for _itself_, but for _others_; it is the
_servant_, and not the _master_. The people were not made for the State,
or given to the State, but the State is posterior to the people; it was,
as I said before, established by the people and for the people. In
them, under God, resides the sovereignty and ultimate permanent
authority. The right of the State is to discharge the duties assigned it
within the sphere of its delegated authority--that is all.
That sphere of action of the State in this country is clearly defined in
the written Constitution. The State, then, must scrupulously abstain
from violating any of the rights it was organized to protect.
There never has been, and never will be, but two forms of
government--one seeking to restrain, the other to enlarge, the liberties
of the people. To the former belong the centralized and despotic
governments of the past and present; to the latter, the limited and
representative ones.
Russia, without doubt, is the highest type of that despotism so common
among Pagan nations. The Czar is the successor of the Gentile Caesar; he
unites in himself the civil and spiritual power; the inevitable result
is social oppression, denial of the rights of conscience, of the family,
and of the political society. Our government has already made gigantic
steps in the same direction. Many of the political minds of this country
have been drawn within the circle of _monarchial_ ideas. They are
unconsciously, as it were, adopting their forms of thought, and applying
their forms of expression to our government, and claiming for it the
prerogatives and supremacy appertaining to the feudal institutions of
Asia and Europe. Our simple democratic form of government seems to be
getting ashamed of its plebeian origin, and ambitious to ape the
language and pretensions of its former masters. This decadence was made
apparent not long ago, in the discussions "for the removal of the United
States Capitol." In a two-hours' discussion, the word "Republic," or
"Federal Government," or "United States," was not once mentioned!! It
was "_Nation_," "Empire," etc., etc., _usque ad nauseam_, from beginning
to end. To a reflecting mind, this language has an ominous significance.
It smacks strongly of monarchy.
But some one will perhaps say, "Sir, what has all this dissertation to
do with your subject? You commence by disclaiming against the _Public
School System_, and here you are giving a grave lecture on the nation
relapsing into imperialism or monarchy."
It has a great deal to do; it is an attempt to trace effects to their
causes. This government of ours, both in its Federal and State capacity,
is growing ambitious to play the _King_. It is setting itself up as
master. It is using the language of all tyrants: "_Sic volo, sic
jubeo_," etc., etc. It claims, after the example of Prussia or Russia,
or some other despotism, _to direct the education of the children_ of
the people. It even claims them as belonging to itself. It is the great
feudal master. It takes upon itself the old duty of providing
instruction for the sons and daughters of its dependents. It takes upon
itself the discharge of duties imposed on parents by Divine Law, just as
if fathers and mothers had lost their natural instincts as well as sense
of duty; just as if the State had all the intelligence, virtue, and
forethought of the public in her keeping. It dispenses parents from a
duty from which God will never dispense them. It has usurped the office
of teacher; it will, if not checked, set itself up as preacher. It makes
Sunday laws, temperance laws; it places marriage on the footing of
simple contracts, facilitates divorce; it is constantly, in all these
things and many others, repeating the "mot" ascribed to a King of
France: "_L'etat c'est moi_." In fine, it makes, as it has been aptly,
but not very reverently, said, God a little man, and itself and the
State a little god, not in love and charity, indeed, but in power and
authority.
Here is where the danger comes from, and it is against this that the
people must provide. The people must see to it that the State, or those
who are charged with its authority, keep within their proper place. The
people can never be too vigilant or jealous of their constituted
authority, never permit themselves to be the victims of misplaced
confidence. The State is not seldom the usurper--the rebel that should
be watched. The allegiance is not to it, but from it to the people--its
master. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
The people have been greatly deceived and wronged by the State on the
establishment of the Public School system. The better to understand
this, let us see again, in a few words, what are the _principles_ on
which the establishment of public schools is based. How did men arrive
at the idea that the State should be a school-master? If we consult
history, we shall find that this idea rests upon most objectionable
grounds. In Europe--in Protestant countries--the education of youth was
held to belong to the church. But as the Protestant prince was also the
chief bishop of his church, he had the care of schools, as well as the
administration of other religious matters. According to this principle
of the _State-church_, all the schools were _State-schools_. At the
present day, Protestant princes and princesses are not looked upon as
chief bishops, but the consequence of this objectionable system does
still remain, and has gained a foothold even in this free country.
The French Revolution, among other things, diffused communistic and
socialistic theories. Nay, communism and socialism seemed to have, for a
moment, the fullest sway in those revolutionary proceedings. It is from
such socialistic revolutionists that came the idea, or rather principle,
which was made a law, that the State should educate the children of its
subjects. Accordingly the school-system was arranged, which Napoleon I.
highly welcomed and retained, as he saw in it a welcome instrument of
his despotism. In fact, nothing pleases State-absolutism or despotism so
much as the complete control of education through the system of
State-schools. As the result of impartial history, then, we see that the
foundation of the State-school system is nothing else than the
objectionable Protestant State-church, and especially revolutionary
socialism.
But most absurd did the State-school system appear after it had been
transplanted into free America. Here this "State system of education"
was at first applied to the poor, and other unprovided-for "waifs of
society." But not long after, the State claimed to have a paramount
interest in the children of all classes; it made no distinction, it knew
not the rich from the poor, but opened its scholastic treasures alike,
and it was thought to be all right.
What an absurdity! The State, as I have remarked, must scrupulously
abstain from violating any of those rights which it was organized to
protect. It must not paralyze or take away the industry of the
individual, family, or private institutions by substituting for it its
own industry. The State should rather protect and promote the industry
of its subjects, as well as other rights and liberties. Let me speak
more plainly: the State, for instance, should protect trade, but it
should not be itself a tradesman; the State should encourage
agriculture, but it should not be itself a farmer; the State should
sustain honest handicraft, but it should not work at shoe-making or
tailoring, and bread-baking. So, in the same manner, the State should
promote and protect education, but it should not be itself a
school-master, and give instruction.
What a cry would be raised if the State erected State workshops, and
thereby ruined all other similar trades! Now the State does the same
thing, as far as possible, in regard to education. What an absurdity! In
our free country, State education has no more foundation in good sense
than the old sumptuary laws, that regulated the length of a boot or the
dimensions of a skirt.
If the State claims the right to educate our children, why does it not
just as well claim the right to nurse, feed, clothe, doctor, and lodge
them? Indeed these necessities are more indispensable, and must be
supplied to a considerable extent before education can be given at all.
Why should the State throw all these burdens on the parents, and assume
that of instruction? It cannot claim to know more of grammar than of
the art of nursing and cooking. It is even said that the tailor and
barber have more to do in fashioning the man than the school-master.
Again, how absurd is it not for the State to undertake to teach all
alike, without regard to their circumstances or prospects in life, the
same business. This scholastic equality soon ends, if it ever had a
reality. They cannot all expect to be Newtons, Humboldts, or La Places.
They cannot be all, nay, not one in ten thousand, "professors," or
"editors," or what not. We cannot, if we would, escape the sentence
imposed on our forefather in the garden: "Thou shalt eat thy bread in
the sweat of thy face." As well might the State claim that all the
children from seven to seventeen years of age should sit at the same
table, provided at public expense, and be served with the same food and
the same number of dishes. If the State (in order to prepare the rising
generation to make citizens, which must be its reason, if any) thinks it
necessary to prescribe a State education, it is equally important that
their food, and even their clothing, should be of the approved State
quality and pattern!!! All know that this was the old Lacaedemonian plan,
and how it ended history tells;--in ferocity, avarice, dishonesty and
disruption. All admit the folly and wickedness of forcing a people into
uniformity in matter of religion. Now it is just as unreasonable, just
as absurd, just as wicked to force the people into uniformity in the
matter of education. One species of tyranny as well as the other
disregards the just claims of conscience, tramples on the most vital
rights of individuals, and usurps the most sacred right of the family.
The State may, indeed, require that the children should be educated, in
order that they may one day become worthy members of society, and fit
subjects for the State; but claim, and give, and control their
education, the State cannot. There is in all this matter a feature not
always clearly represented. It is this: any provision made by the
"State" for education, must refer _to the poor and otherwise
unprovided_, and be justified on the grounds of the State standing to
these classes _in loco parentis_; beyond this, though the State, as to
"charitable uses," may be defined _parens patria_, yet, as to the people
at large, _it has nothing to do with their education whatever_. If this
simple though undeniable fact were properly understood, it would save a
world of trouble and confusion.
I am speaking of a "_Christian State_," and the State in America is
Christian. The very graves, if necessary, would open and give up their
dead to bear testimony to its Christian origin. Its civilization is
Christian, and is the product of the principles of the "_New Law_" as
taught and promulgated by the Church. The distinguishing feature of this
civilization is, that it has asserted the dignity of freedom of the
_individual man_, while the ancient, or Gentile, civilization, _sunk_
the _individual man_ in the composite society called the State. In that
case it was but reasonable that the _State_ should, _as owner_, take
upon itself the burden of providing, not only for his government, but
also for the education of his offspring. These, too, belonged to it, on
the maxim of Roman or Pagan law, that _partus sequitur ventrem_, or the
offspring follows the parent. This is the origin of the Pagan doctrine,
"_the children of the State_"--a miserable relic of barbarism. It is
important to keep this fact in mind, when we deny the _supremacy of the
State_ in the matter of education.
Our children, then, are not the _children of the State_. The State has
no children, and never had, nor will. The State does not own them, nor
their fathers nor mothers, nor anybody else in this country, thank God!
We have not got that far yet on the road to civil slavery, and I hope we
never shall. We are not Pagans, nor Mahometans, nor Russians. We have
not sold out, and don't intend to! We are free, for with a great price
our forefathers have bought this freedom; and better still, we are made,
through the mercy of our Divine Author, Christians, and heirs to a
heavenly kingdom. Our children, too, are free; they belong by the order
of nature to their parents, and by the order of grace to our Lord Jesus
Christ. They are children of God and heirs to His heavenly kingdom. It
is not on the State, but on parents, that God imposed the duty to
educate their children, a duty from which no State can dispense, nor can
fathers and mothers relieve themselves of this duty by the vicarious
assumption of the State. They have to give a severe account of their
children on the Day of Judgment, and they cannot allow any power to
disturb them in insisting upon their rights and making free use of them.
The State has no more authority or control rightfully over our
children, than over a man's wife. The right to educate our children is a
right of conscience, and a right of the family. Now these rights do not
belong to the temporal order at all; and outside of this the State has
no claim, no right, no authority. When the State has children, it will
be time enough to teach them. How long will it take our enlightened age
to learn this simple but important truth?
Nothing shows better the absurdity of the State in claiming the right of
education, than its incompetency for the task. The State is forbidden
any interference with religion.
I have shown that the whole system is infidel in principle. The State
says we want no religion taught in the Public Schools, because, as we
cannot teach you religion without inculcating some form or other
professed by some sect or other, and as we do not wish to give offence,
we will teach you none. Let the child believe anything or nothing, so as
it is not some form of "sectarianism." I worship in the "Pantheon;" all
are alike to me, of course. In all this the State is perfectly
consistent, and cannot do otherwise. It has undertaken a part _it is not
competent to perform_. The State, as State, professes no form of
belief. Its gods, its worships, its altars, its victims, its rewards,
its punishments, its heaven, its hell--are here. It teaches no religion,
because it don't profess any. It was not born, it will not die, it has
no soul, it was not created, it will not be judged in the world to come,
like men.
But let me not be misunderstood as concluding that states, nations, or
kingdoms are not moral persons, and are not responsible for their acts
and conduct to Almighty God. They have no right to do wrong more than an
individual. "States" have their lives, their mission, their destiny;
they have their sphere here below. They represent the temporal, or the
things which belong to Caesar.
The State, then, is a moral person, and _a fortiori_, a religious
person, _for there can be no morality without religion_. But though
religion, in a general sense, be recognized by the State, it has no
authority to control or direct it. It must respect the conscience of an
individual. This is his birthright, and cannot be voted away, whether to
support Public Schools or Public Churches.
If there be amongst us any number, great or small, who deny the common
faith, it is the duty of the State to tolerate them. A greater
power--God--does this. But the State itself cannot profess or _play
infidel_, or, under pretence of avoiding sectarian partiality, strike at
the root of all Christianity. I admit the State is of the "temporal
order," and cannot discriminate between the various modes of belief; but
not for that can it place itself _outside_ of them. It is
_distinguishable_, but not _separable_, from the spiritual order. It is
simply a means to a greater end. It is a mischievous error to say that
the State has nothing to do with religion, and may act outside of its
obligations. If by this it is meant that the State cannot establish or
maintain any special form of religion, or interfere with its profession,
or even denial by others, I admit the proposition; but if, on the other
hand, it is meant that it regards Christianity and infidelity, God or no
God, truth and error, either as equal or unimportant, then I utterly
deny and condemn it. To bear with and tolerate error is its duty; to
foster or provide for its support or propagation, or place it on the
same footing with revealed truth, is another and very different thing.
The constitutions of the State guarantee to every citizen the right to
worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; but this is
not guaranteeing to every one the liberty of not worshipping God at all,
to deny His existence, His revelation, or to worship a false god. The
freedom guaranteed is the freedom of religion, not the freedom of
infidelity. The American Constitution grants to the infidel the right of
protection in his civil and political equality, but it grants him no
right to protection and support in his infidelity; for infidelity is not
a religion, but the denial of all religion. The American State is
Christian, and under the Christian law, and is based upon Christian
principles. It is bound to protect and enforce Christian morals and its
laws, whether assailed by Mormonism, Spiritism, Freelovism, Pantheism,
or Atheism. But the State does the contrary. For, I ask, is not the
State indirectly prohibiting the profession of Christianity by
establishing a system of education which prohibits all religious
instruction? The State forbids the teacher to speak a word on the
subject of religion.
The State says that "it is an admitted axiom that our form of
government, more than all others, depends on the _virtue and
intelligence of the people_. The State proposes to furnish this _virtue_
and _intelligence_ through the _Public Schools_." That is, the safety of
the State depends on the virtue and intelligence of the people, and the
latter is derived from the virtue and intelligence of the "State." But
where does the virtue and intelligence of the State come from? The only
answer on this theory is, from the people. So the "State" enlightens and
purifies the people, and the people enlighten and purify the "State."
The people support the State, the State supports the Public Schools, and
they support the State. If this is not what logicians call a "vicious
circle," it looks very much like it. It puts me in mind of the Brahmin's
theory of the support of the earth. The Hindoo says, "The world rests on
the back of an elephant--the elephant rests on the back of a turtle."
But what does the turtle rest on? So it is with our "_Public School
Brahmins_." They will tell you, with all the coolness of Hindoo
hypocrisy and pretension, that the "State depends on the schools--the
schools on the State or people," but they do not say what the turtle
stands on. This is the dilemma that all who rest society on the State,
or on an atheistical basis, get into. They would cut the world loose
from its assigned order of dependence on Divine Law, and "set it a-going
on its own hook." But the trouble is, they have no support for this
turtle; they have an earth without axis. The Public School savans would
have a self-supporting, a self-adjusting, and a self-created State,
balanced on nothing, resting on nothing, responsible to nothing, and
believing in nothing but in its own perfection and immortality. They
pretend, "through godless schools," to give virtue without morality,
morality without religion, and religion without God; thereby sinking
below the level of the poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in the
clouds, and hears Him in the wind.
The nameless abominations of the Communists, Fourrierists, and other
such vile and degraded fraternities; the cold-blooded murders and
frightful suicides that fill so many domestic hearths with grief and
shame; the scarcely-concealed corruption of public and professional men;
the adroit peculation and wilful embezzlement of the public money; those
monopolizing speculations and voluntary insolvencies so ruinous to the
community at large; and, above all, those shocking atrocities so common
in our country of unbelief--the legal dissolution of the matrimonial
tie, and the wanton tampering with life in its very bud; all these are
humiliating facts sufficient to convince any impartial mind that there
can be no social virtue, no morality, no true and lasting greatness,
without religion.
"Religion," says Lord Derby, "is not a thing apart from education, but
is interwoven with its whole system; it is a principle which controls
and regulates the whole mind and happiness of the people." And, "Popular
education," says Guizot, "to be truly good and socially useful, must be
fundamentally religious."
The essential element of education--its pith and marrow, so to speak--is
the religious element. By excluding it from the school-room the State
has committed a crying injustice to the rising generation, and one of
the worst--if not the very worst--of crimes against society. It is not
one portion of the "triple man," but the whole--the physical,
intellectual, and moral being--the body, the mind, the head, as stated
in a previous chapter--that must be cultivated and "brought up."
Neglect any one part of man's nature, and you at once disturb the
equilibrium of the whole, and produce disorder; educate the body at the
expense of the mind and soul, and you will have only animated clay;
educate the intelligence at the expense of the moral and religious
feelings, and you but fearfully increase a man's power to effect evil.
You store the arsenal of his mind with weapons to sap alike the altar
and the throne, to carry on a war of extermination against every holy
principle, against the welfare and the very existence of society.
Science, without religion, is more destructive than the sword in the
hands of unprincipled men; it will prove more of a demon than a god. It
is these upholders of the present Public School system that arrest the
progress of true happiness in our country, and prepare terrible
catastrophes, which may deluge the land with blood.
Who were the leaders in the work of destruction and wholesale butchery
in the Reign of Terror? The nurslings of lyceums in which the chaotic
principles of the "philosophers" were proclaimed as _oracles of truth_.
Who are those turbulent revolutionists who now long to erect the
guillotine by the Tuilleries? And who are those secret conspirators and
their myrmidon partisans who have sworn to unify Italy or lay it in
ruins? Men who were taught to scout the idea of a God and rail at
religion, to consider Christianity as a thing of the past; men who revel
in wild chimeras by night, and seek to realize their mad dreams by day.
Let us, then, dear American fellow-citizens, rest assured that
intellectual discipline, without the cooeperation of any religious
element, will not, and cannot, produce the greatness of a nation, nor
can it maintain its life and splendor and prevent its decay; let us, on
the contrary, be persuaded that the only safety for a commonwealth, the
only source of greatness and prosperity for a nation, as well as of
tranquillity and happiness for the individual, is the true religion of
Jesus Christ; it is this religion alone that is the safeguard of
morality, and morality is the best security of law, as well as the
surest pledge of freedom.
CHAPTER X.
THE STATE A ROBBER.--VIOLATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND COMMON LAW.
We have seen, so far, that the irreligious, godless system of the Public
Schools tends directly to turn the youth of both sexes into the worst
kind of infidels; to make them disregard good principles, and hold
iniquity in veneration; to do away, not only with all revealed religion,
but even with the law of nature; to make them practise fraud, theft, and
robbery almost as a common trade; to make them regardless of their
parents and of all divinely constituted authority; we have seen that
this godless system of education is the most powerful means to create
confusion, not only in religion, but also in government and in the
family circle; to increase the number of apostates, and make of these
apostates members of such secret societies as aim at the overthrow of
governments and all good order, and Christian religion itself.
Truly, this godless system of education, if carried out to its logical
consequences, will disrupt society, destroy the right of the Christian
family entirely, bring back on the world the barbarism, tyranny and
brutality of Pagan antiquity, and make slaves and victims of its
children and their posterity forever!
Who does not feel most indignant at the State for having introduced such
a godless system of education? And for the support of this system of
education--of this _prolific mother of children of anti-Christ_--we are
enormously tithed and taxed! Horrible!
I have shown that the State in America is Christian; that it cannot
profess or play infidel. What right, then, has a Christian State to
compel Christians to support infidel schools? Is not this compulsory
support most violative of constitutional and religious rights? According
to the Constitution of the State, "no human authority can control or
interfere with the rights of conscience." Now, the direction and control
of the education of our children is clearly not only a duty, but a
"right of conscience." This right, of course, belongs to all
denominations, whether few or many. By what authority, then, does the
State impose _an established system_ of education at our expense against
this constitutionally guaranteed right of conscience? I would like to
know wherein this differs from an established church, such as has been
lately removed, after having been imposed for centuries by State
supremacy on the Irish people, without their consent.
_It is, in fact, much worse_; for though the Episcopal Church was not in
accordance with the religious belief of a majority, yet it was,
nevertheless, a Christian Church of a sect of high orthodox pretensions.
But these "_Public Schools_," for whose support we and all other
Christian denominations are taxed, are, by their own confession, utterly
_irreligious_. The early Christians refused to burn even a little
gum-rosin (incense) before the Pagan idols, and preferred rather to go
to the lions; but we Christians, in this late day, and in what is
boastingly called "Free America," are forced to pay taxes to support
what is worse than heathen idols--schools from which the name of God is
excluded, and, to our shame, we submit.
Referring to the wrong done to Catholics who cannot, in conscience, send
their children to these schools, Judge Taft, of Ohio, said not long ago:
"This is too large a circumstance to be covered by the Latin phrase, 'De
minimis non curat lex.' These Catholics (paying their proportion of the
taxes) are constrained, every year, on conscientious grounds, to yield
to others their right to one-third of the school-money, a sum averaging,
at the present time, about $200,000 every year. That is to say, these
people are _punished_ every year, for believing as they do, to the
extent of $200,000; and to that extent those of us who send our children
to these excellent common schools _become beneficiaries of the Catholic
money_. What a shame for Protestants to have their children educated for
money robbed from Catholics! Mercantile life is supposed to cultivate,
in some, a relish for hard bargains. But if it were a business matter,
and not a matter of religious concern, could business men be found
willing to exact such a pecuniary advantage as this? I think it would
shock the secular conscience!"
The State, in creating _free schools_, is like the Turkish Bashaw's mode
of making pork cheap. He first compelled the Jews to buy it at a rate
fixed by himself; but the Jews had no use for it, so it was left for
every one to pick up at will. Indeed, what is a school worth when a man
will pay a premium to be exempt from sending his children to it? The
State, boasting of its splendid Public Schools, is also like that poor
fellow who wore a gold watch and boasted of it. "Where did you get it?"
he was asked. "I got it as a present," he answered. Then he related how
one day he met with a rich man: "I knocked him down," he said, "put my
foot on his throat, and said: 'Give me your watch, or I kill you.' So he
gave it to me." "Pay your taxes for the erection and support of our
Public Schools," says the lord State to the poor and to the rich, "or I
sell your property." What a shame! The Catholics ask no favor, but they
insist on their rights. In this country, whose discoverer was a
Catholic--in this country, where the principle of religious toleration
was first established by a Catholic nobleman, the famous and chivalric
Calvert, Earl of Baltimore--in this country, whose people are largely
indebted for their freedom to the armed cooeperation and generous aid of
Catholic France--in this country, whose constitutional freedom has been
struck down by the malevolent Puritanism _which in one breath declares
that Catholics are opposed to education, and in the next insists that
they shall be deprived of the means necessary for its maintenance_--in
this country, I say, we Catholics are entitled to equal rights, and to a
fair share, to a just apportionment of the annual amount raised by
taxation for the support of our charitable and educational institutions.
We ask only what is fair, what is just, what is right; and we base our
demand upon principle, and not upon the ground of favors granted or
received.
If the State taxes us, as a religious and Christian people, for the
education of our children, it must give us a Christian education. If it
cannot, or will not do that, it must cease to tax us, and leave the
education of our children to ourselves. If the Christian gives to Caesar
what belongs to Caesar, he has a right to demand of Caesar that he allow
him to give to God what belongs to God.
Again, the Constitution says, "That no person shall be compelled to
erect, support, or attend any place of public worship, nor support any
minister of the gospel, or teacher of religion," etc.; and it says,
"That no private property ought to be taken or applied to public use
without just compensation." Now let us apply these constitutional
principles to State-schools, and see if our compulsory support of them
is not violative of our constitution as well as common law. Why is it
"that no person shall be compelled to erect, support, or attend any
place of public worship, nor support any minister of religion"? Simply
because he "don't want to"; and he don't want to, "because it is against
his conscience"; and "no human authority," says the Constitution, "can
control or interfere with the rights of conscience"; that is all the
reason, and no other. The State believes that all places of worship, and
ministers of the gospel, are good; but, knowing that there is a
difference of opinion among the people on that subject, wisely leaves
such matters to their choice, and will not take private property for
public use without compensation. Why, then, is private property taken
for Public Schools without compensation? We cannot use them in
conscience, and we have seen there is no lawful power or authority to
"control or interfere with conscience." I ask, then, if I am not right
in stating that our compulsory support of an odious and infidel system
of Public Schools, against our conscience and against our consent, is
not far worse than the support of any form of church establishment?
Moreover, according to the Constitution, "No preference can ever be
given by law to any church, sect, or mode of worship." This section is
often quoted as the authority and reason for excluding religious
teachings from the Public Schools; but, strange enough, it is flagrantly
violated by the present system, giving a _preference by law_ to the
_unbelievers_, and thereby discriminating against the believers of all
sects and denominations. For, after all, there can be but two churches,
or, if you please, sects, in the eye of the State--the believers and
unbelievers. To the former belong the various Christian denominations,
and to the latter those who deny and _protest_ against all religious
faith and belief. Those certainly are the last, and for that reason, if
for no other, are the _best or worst_ (as people may choose to view
them) sect. It is, then, this last product, this "_caput mortuum_" of
all sects and believers of every shade and kind, that is favored by the
no-belief system of education.
"Though the State may not give any preference to any church or sect," it
is not, on that account, authorized to ignore and reject all; but, on
the contrary, is obliged in justice to assist all or none, as, by this
course alone, it avoids giving preference to any. This is what the law
contemplates, and the only course that comports with reason and justice.
If it suits the _last sect_--the _unbelievers or no-believers_--to
exclude morals or religion from schools, all right; let them keep on as
at present. But if it suits the various other churches or sects to
modify the system to suit their conscientious views and beliefs, to
apply their own proportion of the school tax for that purpose, it is
their undeniable and lawful right.
There is one view in which the public will agree in regard to the Public
Schools: it is that they cost too much money. For the management of the
godless Public Schools there is a costly array of "Commissioners," and
"Inspectors," and "Trustees," and "Superintendents," and "Secretaries of
Boards," and "Central Officers," all in league with "Contractors," to
make "a good thing"--so-called--out of the plan. We have, now,
contractors for buildings and repairs, contractors for furniture,
contractors for books, contractors for furnaces, contractors for fuel,
contractors even for pianos, and all making money out of it. The
"Boards" that give the contracts do not make any money by way of
commissions, do they? Ah! you know full well that hundreds of thousands
of dollars are annually spent or squandered in running these Public
Schools, and which are recommended, in a particular manner, for their
_economy_!
But aside, for a moment, from these _Public Schools_, so numerous, so
costly, so grand and imposing in their exterior, managed by a little
army of high-paid professors, teachers, superintendents and assistants,
costing the people of every city and State hundreds of thousands of
dollars annually, there is another army, yea, a volunteer army, not
commissioned or paid by the State, but by a greater power--God--who, for
His love, and that uncomparable reward which only God bestows, devote
themselves to teaching, instructing, training and educating the poor,
the needy, the orphan, the houseless, the homeless, the forlorn, the
despised, as well as the more favored of the earth. These make no
grandiloquent printed reports in costly binding; they have no official
stenographers or reporters to noise their proceedings in "morning
papers"; they have no "Polytechnic Halls," fitted up with pretentious
libraries, and all the surroundings of upholstery, and heating and
cooling apparatus; but winter and summer, early and late, they keep the
even tenor of their way with an "_eye single_" to their humble and
laborious duties.
In nearly all the cities of America, in those busy and worldly centres
of traffic and trade, of luxury and wealth, with their average of good
and evil, virtue and crime, this "_volunteer army_" distributes itself
noiselessly, quietly, and as it were obscurely, not heralded nor
preceded by the emblems of pomp or worldly power, but nevertheless
making its conquests and asserting its quiet influence in lanes and
alleys, gathering up the little children, taking them to its camps, and
instructing and educating them in the service of God and society.
You may have seen, in some of those cities, that long line of little
boys or girls, two by two, extending to the length of a block or more;
you may have observed how regularly they are assorted, the tallest in
first, and ranging down to the little ones, whose busy feet are trying
to keep up with the column. You may also have noted the order and
silence (so unusual among children), and your attention was arrested,
and perhaps you know not how all this order in this beautiful panorama
was brought about. Well, with these boys you may have observed two men,
one at the head, the other at the foot of this long line. If you saw
this for the first time you may have wondered, and I suppose been even
amused, at the figure and costume of those men;--the broad-brimmed hat,
the long, strange-fashioned robe, the white collar, the collected air
and mien, all bespeak the _Christian Brother_. These men, nevertheless,
are "profoundly learned in all the sciences of the schools." They have
abandoned home, family, friends, and have devoted themselves, merely for
a scant support, to the education of the young.
If, on the other hand, the long line are girls, you may have observed
two ladies; one at the head, the other at the foot. You will at a glance
conclude they are not of the world. Their costume is of the homeliest
cut and quality, but scrupulously clean; there is a something about
their very presence that impresses you with reverence and respect, and
you must be a very hardened sinner indeed if you did not feel the better
of having even their shadow fall upon you. These silent, collected, but
impressive women are "_Nuns_" of one order or another. They, too, have
left all to serve God in the persons of these little children. They have
made sacrifices greater than the world can appreciate or understand, and
which only the Divine Master can reward. Their whole life is a silent
but an eloquent sermon, their whole conduct the gospel in action. You
will remember they are women like others of their sex, and mayhap have
been flattered and petted, and once filled with the natural vanity and
expectations of their sex; but all these they have put _behind_ them,
and henceforth and forever their walk, and life, and conversation is
with God, and in the service of His little ones. Now it will be easily
seen that the personal influence of such men and women over the life and
manners of children, must be immensely beneficial. It is granted that
the influence of father and mother is potential for good or evil. So it
is with teachers. Children are shrewd observers, and are apt to take
some one as a prototype and exemplar. This one they copy as near as may
be. These "Christian Brothers," and "Nuns, or Sisters," are good models;
they teach the children to pray in the best of all ways--by praying
themselves first; they try to impress on these tender souls sentiments
of love, obedience, and respect to their fathers and mothers, and, above
all, their duties to our dear Lord. They accompany them to His altar on
Sundays and holy days, beginning and ending all their daily lessons with
a little prayer or devotion. For the rest, they give them, in their
schools, a plain, practical education.
Every day (we are told) there are instances of men slipping from the
high rounds to the lowest one in the ladder of wealth. Business men find
themselves engulphed in the sea of financial embarrassment, from which
they emerge with nothing but their personal resources to depend upon for
a living. Clerks, salesmen, and others find themselves thrown out of
employment, with no prospect of speedily obtaining places which they are
competent to fill, and with no other means of gaining a livelihood. How
many men are there in every city to-day, some of whom have families
dependent on them for support, who bewail the mistake they made in not
learning useful trades in their younger days? There are hundreds of
them. There are men in every city who have seen better days, men of
education and business ability, who envy the mechanic, who has a sure
support for himself and family in his handicraft. Parents make a great
mistake when they impose upon the brain of their boy the task of
supporting him, without preparing his hands for emergencies.
No matter how favorable a boy's circumstances may be, he should enter
the battle of life as every prudent general enters the battle of armies:
with a reliable reserve to fall back upon in case of disaster. Every man
is liable to be reduced to the lowest pecuniary point at some stage of
his life, and it is hardly necessary to refer to the large proportion of
men who reach that point. No man is poor who is the master of a trade.
It is a kind of capital that defies the storm of financial reverse, and
that clings to a man when all else has been swept away. It consoles him,
in the hour of adversity, with the assurance that, let whatever may
befall him, he need have no fear for the support of himself and his
family.
Unfortunately a silly notion--the offspring of a sham aristocracy--has,
of late years, led many parents to regard a trade as something
disreputable, with which their children should not be tainted. Labor
disreputable! What would the world be without it? It is the very power
that moves the world. A Power higher than the throne of the aristocracy
has ennobled labor, and he who would disparage it must set himself above
the Divine principle, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!" A
trade is a "friend in need"; it is independence and wealth--a rich
legacy which the poorest father may give to his son, and which the
richest should regard as more valuable than gold.
Now what kind of education is necessary for a tradesman to carry on
business successfully? Only a plain, practical education; that is to
say, that kind and amount of knowledge of daily ordinary use and
appreciation. It is reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and
geography, and possibly a knowledge of the German language, sufficient
t
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