Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1868-12-09


Times from Madrid
Freedom of conscience supplies freedom
of instruction, and both OF them, like all
other liberties are henceforth to be unlimi
ted in Spain. Little more than four months
ago-that is up to % of last June-clerical
and secular education were TO work side by
side; but by the law bearing that date the
schoolmaster was thrown out Of employment
and the priest enjoyed monopoly in the
diffusion of knowledge or ignorance. Spain
was so utterly lost sight OF during that mel
ancholy period, that few people in England
were aware of the depth of darkness the in
fatuated Queen Isabella was ushering in.
By single stroke of the pen she abolished
normal schools, placed all primary instruc
ton under priestly supervision and control,
and Suppressed the schools in all villages and
parishes of less than FIVE hundred inhabi-
tants, entrusting the teaching of the chill
dren in those small districts to the priest
alone The Jesuits, who had been banished
by law, in repeated instances crept in first
under a variety of disguises, as brothers of
ST Vincent de Paul, Liguorists, &c. final
ly in their own garb of long gowns AMI broad
brimmed hats, invading the highest branch
es of university learning; while what are
called 1.-THE Jesuits' inlps," the Sc0lOpii,
Ignoranti.s, and other brothers of the
Christian schools laid hold of the minor es-
tabliShments and drilled the minds of the
younger part of the rising generation.
1t is not that the Roman Catholic clergy
We're animated by any excessive zeal to do
school master sduty. Wherever their sway is
thoroughly and exclusively dominant, wher-
ever their numbers are allowed to an exhor-
bltant extent, their eagerness as public in
strufors are apt 10 slacken. In the island
of Sardinia where ecclesastics of both sex
es were, not many years ago, IN the proper
ton of one to twenty-five of the population,
the number of utterly illiterate persons was
considerably higher than in any other Euro
pean community. Nor was it merely in the
idle mplishments'' of reading and
writing that Catholic children were stinted
BY their ghostly Instructors. La spite of all
the efforts of Carlos Borromeo, and other
high minded prelates, even the Sunday
schools were shockingly neglected. The
catechism itself, such as it vas, was verbal
mechanical manner.
The Italln or Spanish priest held that
ignorance was bliss, and where thought had
the least scope their faith exercised the su
rest dominion. The priest, however, was
the dog in the rnanger He shirked his duty as
an instructor, but suffered no one to step in
his place. Rather than put up with schoo'-
master he would, no matter with what reluc
tance and at what Inconvenience, take the
school himself Such was the mission of
Jesuitism As mankind had decreed that
there should be light, the Church deter
mined that light should go through the me-
dunn of her doctrines. A whole phalanx Of
ghostly doctors have for the last three cen
turies been striving to protect the world
from the virus of knowledge by pretending
toinoculate it themselves.
In spain now, as in earlier periods in
France and It;.ly, all that is to be changed.
Instruction is to be free and open to all,
emancipated from Church and State control.
Every one Is to be allowed to open a school,
to adopt his own method, to use his own
books, and inculcate his own principles,
without any interference of the authorities.
What duties as public instructor may still
devolve upon the State, what privileges may
still be conceded to the clergy, time and ma
ture lie gislation will have to decide But in
the meantime the decree published last We'd
nesday by the Minister of Public Works and
Instruction, by repeating the June law, at
once put an end to ecclesiastical monopoly,
established perfect freedom of private edu
cation, reopened primary schools, and reor
gauized the normal schools, thus sowing the
first seeds of STATE education. The minis
ter also engaged to lay before the Constitu-
tent Cortes bill for omplete scheme of
public instruction.
The revolution has thus far gained the
victory More than FIVE hundred Jesuits,
as We are told, have fed across the frontier
to Portugal Several scores have taken ret
uge in Bayonne. In most towns their allies
of ST. Vincent de Paul and of other demon
inations have been expelled or dispersed 10y
the Juntas. In some places. even the EpIs-
copal seminaries have been closed. 1t Is
clear. in short, that if the wind continues
TO blow from the same qu rter, Jesuits,
monks, priests, and even nuns are not to be
admitted To the benefit of the common right
of unlimited freedom of instruction"
Little Sarah Colt, aged eleven, started
tie first Sunday School in Patterson, New