True American. [volume] (Steubenville [Ohio]) 1855-1861, 1855-01-18
9DQIitigal,
LITERATURE OF PRoTEsTANTIsM
BY REV. DAVID WILSON.

Conhlderaple interest mas peen manlleS-
ted in contemplating the pretensious of the
Catholic clergy in assuming charge of our
educational interest The whole country
vas recently surprised by simultaneous.
and it would, appear, a concerted effort
upon their part to gain an undue control of
the common school fund. This plan has
been variously disguised, at one time sup
plant for the simple exclusion of the Bible
as text book, and anon claiming the sep
arate organization and endowment of de-
nominational schools. Under various pre-
tences these arguments have become in
deed too popular with many of our fellow
citizens, who, actuated doubtless by the
noblest impulses, were prepared, without
proper reflection, to inAict upon their pos
terity great moral and political wrong.
The danger is not yet past, and as we
cannot tell what peculiar causes may occur
to give preponderance to this scheme, and
as the effort has been repeated under differ
ent pretexts, it behooves us to carefully
guard against these encroachments on our
rights. This effort has also given rise to
another question, which, though in no way
interfering with our constituted privileges,
is one which it concerns us to examine; I
allude to the attempt to underrate our gen.
eral educational privileges by an unfair
comparison of Catholic and Protestant lit
erary institutions. AT first view it may
be thought that this can do no harm; that
the converse facts are too apparent, that it
is jesuit trick, &c. But this will not do,
and if necessary, we are not without eyi-
dence to prove that these statements have
already done infinite harm. We need but
refer to the thousands of Protestants who
are annually educated in Catholic semina-
ries, and who are constantly exposed to all
these pernicious evils, martyrs to ignorance,
ambition or undue parental fondness. It
is natural and right that parents and guar
dians should select the best educational ad-
vantages-and they are rather objects of
pity than censure-when from this anxious
desire to benefit those with whose educa-
tion they are entrusted, they send them to
Catholic schools. We are anxious to do
justice to this question, not to consider it
in one sense either as Protestant or Cath
olic, but at the same time to defend our
own Protestant literature and institutions.
Ii our institutions, in literary point of
view, are really inferior, they ought not to
remain 50; and the whole country as the
guardians of education should demand the
adoption of such measures as must tend to
the elevation of the standard of education
There is no reason why Protestant schools
should not rival their Catholic neighbors,
and from the position of other Protestant
institutions On the European Continent, if
these results are not secured, the fault
must attach to US. We are new coun-
try, and have fewer facilities for thorough
intellectual discipline, but we are not so
new that all necessary advantages cannot
be easily secured. Some of the most prom
inent institutions of our country had an
early origin, and owe their present eleva-
ton, no doubt, to the wise liberality of
their colonial founders. 1t is true, were
we to judge of the literary characters of
our fathers by the present standards of
taste and thought, the comparison would
be against them, but the earlier efforts of
many of them would not suffer in the COM
parison with some of the most gifted minds
in Europe. The past century both in this
country and in Europe, was distinguished
era, and none doubt but that Edwards and
Davies in theology, and Franklin in phi
losophy, attained an almost unrivalled pre-
emineuce. Indeed it may seem farcical
that these pretensions should exist. His
tory, reason and observation show that it
is not the case. 1t is not our purpose,
however, to contrast simply the respective
merits of these separate institutions, but to
disprove these assertions, from the literary
characteristics of each system. These in
Stitutions are not mere piles of brick and
mortar, each has an organic existence, and
eaeh is designed to be the exponent and
advocate of its own distinctive views
With the Catholic, perhaps, much more
than with Protestant institutions, they are
mainly intended as indispensable auxiliaries
in propagating chosen opinions. This the
Catholics will not deny, at least the alleged
religious injury done to their own children,
when received into the public schools, was
the great plea for the proportional dividend
ofthe public fund. Destroy the probable
injury likely to be done to Catholics from
contact with Protestantism, or let their
seminaries lose their immense religious in
iluencc, and who doubts that their literary
zeal would evidence considerable abate-