New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-03-15
TIE ROM1N CATHOLIC VIEW or TN
SGUOOL Question:


SCHOOL QUESTION.
The letter of IL. +. b. in our last we accept
as an able. courteous and frank presentmcnt
of that view of the School Question which the
Roman Catholic clergy seem resolved to en-
force through the votes of their ilocks. Let Us
endeavor to state as kindly and clearly wherein
we think its doctrine unsound and its demands
inadmissable H. +. b. says:
"Thc real issue is this Has not father the right I'M
der our laws teach his child his fahI and do not
the laws expressly guarantee that lac shall be protected
IN this right Now let apply this to the Catholic
father and the present schootaK. Even for arguments
sake We will expe the Bible II there be no religious
instruction formally in the schools, the Catholic faith
cannot live II cannot be taught by ncgation. Thus the
Catholic taxpayer taxed to drive his faith from his
childs heart"
THE T-ibupe'S RcpIy.-Our correspondent crrs
vitally in assuming that the education afforded
to each child in our common schools either is
or purports to be complete and cXclusivc-that
it even purposes to preclude other instruction.
Suppose some one gifted with the power of
teaching Chemistry and Geology in six les
sons of three hours each were to offer to teach
his children, lie would not 1--WE trusD feel
bound to decline such instruction because that
teacher did not at the same time perfect them
i'm a knowledge of the creed and catcchism OF
his church. Yet 1t would be just as rational
thus to decline as to withdraw his children
from orr common schools for a like reason.
We assume as fundamental that the parents
Of each child should care for the religious in
struction of that child in accordance with their
own convictions of truth and duty. The State
does not assume that high trust, and, under our
political system, never can assume IT, III aces
charge itself with the instruction of each child
in letters and the rudiments OF secular edu-
cation, because such education Is essential to
its own prosperity and safety. For this pur-
pose it requires that child's attendance on its
schools for thirty hours per week tout OF 1862
for part of each year between its fourth and
its sixteenth. This leaves time-ample time
for religious instruction; and this should be
given in the family, the Sunday school, and
the church. 1t is a mOnstrous assumption
that the child must be left without
religious teaching because he is not taught
theology during those six hours per day of five
days per week during part of each year
which the State claims for secular instruction.
If any child remains ignorant Of religious
truth, it is not because the State leaves no
time for its incubation, but because that time
is allowed to pass unimproved. In other words,
H. f. BIS objection to the States action in
the premises is (really) that it does not incul.
cate his theology. He may not see this but
it is nevertheless the fact.
lie proceeds to say that
81 can only express my adhesion TO a free denomna.
tonal system, the only system consistent with tho
rights Of conscience under Republic in which all are
to "A de nat
st sectaran bitterness 9d destroying freedom OF edu
cation"
No, Sir! Those are not the entire nor even
the greatest objections to your "denominational
system" far graver inheres in the fact that
under such system, large portion of our
children cannot be educated at all. A very
large proportion of our people are dlrused on
farms whereof twenty OF thirty cover the whole
area from which the children can be daily
gathered into a school-house. Let us assume
that the Roman Catholics can only attend a
school in which their religion is taught, and
we must accord the same privilege to Presby-
terians. Baptists, Epscopalians, Methodists.
Unitarians, .Universalists, Jews. Deists, Athe-
lists, &c. Very often, six or eight differ
ent denominations inhabit the same school
district. To say that the children of each
must be educated at school in the tenets
of their own church, is to say that there shall
be no general schooling for the district cannot
support half a dozen different schools. What
is claimed for the Roman Catholics, therefore.
is a complete subversion of our Common School
system; and that we can never conccdc. Even
though the Roman Catholic clergy should with
draw the children oi their laiy from the COM