New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-01-28
RELIGION IN COMMON SCHOOLS

The Educational Monthly has an able argu-
ment in support of the claim advanced by GER
tain Roman Catholics and certain also of other
persuasions for a partition of Public School
Money sin the interest Gas they hold) of Religion.
And this is but one of many intimations that
our Common School system is in peril-that its
very foundations are threatened. Let us en-
deavor to elucidate the matter as fairly as we
can;
The advocates of separate schools insist that
all Education must be imperfect, one-sided,
misleading, that does not include religious in
stIuctiOn and culture, and that OF the nature
and suificiency of this culture no one can as
sumo to judge for another. One may find all
he requires in the Ten Commandments an
other may choose TO add the Lords Prayer; q
third may reject these, and replace them by
the Pantheism (Or whatever it may be- OF
Comte or Lamennas. The Catholic assumes
not to Judge for any Of these, but only for
himself when he afirms that, for him, religion
exists in the creed, sacraments, ritual organiza-
ton, ministry, and observances, of that Church
which finds It's terrestrial center of unity and
living oracle in the Bishop of Rome, commonly
known as the Pope. lie. asks. therefore, that
his children shall be educated in common
schools distnctvely Catholic in their character,
usages and inculcations; cOnceding to all others
the night to please themselves in the premises
by having Presbyterian, Methodist, Protestant
Episcopal, Unitarian, Nationalist, Positivist or
NeolOgist schools, as they shall prefer. This,
he contends, is true religious freedom, such as
happily prevails here with regard to everything
else, and ought to prevail with regard to Edu-
cation also.
We have tried to state the case made against
our Common School system fairly and for
chilly, so that not Roman Catholics only
but all who, on religious grounds, demand sep
arate schools, should find their views fairly re-
presented Now consider what is urged in the
other side:
l. The fatal falacy involved in the demand
for separate schools turks in the quiet assump-
ton that children are to be taught in common
schools all they are to KNOWN other words,
that Education is found in the schOOl-hOuse
alone. But, though every boy land we think
every girl also) should be taught a trade, We
do not assume to teach trades in common
schools and parent might as reasonably OBJ
iect to a public school that it fails to make
bows good carpenters or blacksmiths as that 1t
fails to make them good Baptists or Catholics.
A good trade may be more essential to youth
than knowledge of grammar or arithmetic;
yet our common schools teach the latter, not
the former and so of the art of reading on
the one hand and the Nicene Greed Oh the
other.
III. Our case is made far stronger by the fact
that ample and efficient provision is made outside
Of our common schools for religious instruction.
Not merely churches Of every faith, but Sun
day schools wherein every child is welcomed
and gratuitOusly taught, are found in great
abundance in every part of our City and sub
urbs, where the demand for separate schools
is most formidable. The State sets apart one
day in each week, and that the Lords day of
most Christians. for physical rest and religious
culture, and constrains even those who are not
Christians to render it an outward and formal
Difference. The internisson of productive
labor, the closing of the g1ogshops and beer
saloons, the quiet, decorum and order generally
maintained, peculiarly adapt this day to the
incubation Of religious truth; and it is very
generally improved. No child who really de-
sires religious instruction can fail to obtain here
such as he prefers, unless forbidden by his
parents The Sunday School, though of modern
date and non-clerical Protestant origin, has