Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-05-10
Father Finnegan Again.

MEssRs. EDITORS very cheerfully ac-
cept your invitation to discuss the school
question in the columns of your journal
and / wish to do so in all candor and good
humor.
You must not imagine that Catholics
ask their fellow-citizens to give up their
schools, They make no such impertinent
demands. They merely request that you
will suffer them to enjoy their own where
their faith shall not be tempered with nor
their feelings wounded nor their church
maligned.
Here in Knoxville we have large and
fiourishing school supported by the con-
opulent circumstances. Is it fair, is it just
to compel us also to pay our share towards
the support of other schools
1t will not do to meet the difficulty by
the mere assertion of the controlling
power of majority, to say we Protes-
tants are the more numerous we
have the power, and we insist on
having the common school system to suit
ourselves-you Catholics can take or leave
it, but you must pay for it. Nor will it do
to say, our system is good, perfect, unobjec-
tionable; if you do not avail yourselves
of it, the loss is yours No, it will not be
met in this way, except by certain parties
The common sense and spirit Of fair play
which exists in the people of Knoxville
moro impartial spirit, and will admit that
funds appropriated out of the public taxes
to support an institution of public utility
ought to be 80 allocated that all those who
bear their share of the burdens, shall also
reap their share Of the benefits
You would not wish to make discrlmi-
nations or distinctions. You fuse the ris-
ing generations with generous sympathy
and religious homogeneousness. And yet
you think schools ought not to be made
obnoxious by intoxicating religious doc
trines, farther than is necessary to impress
upon the young those leading doctrines Of
Christianity which are implicitly every
where recognized in America" What
religious doctrines would make the school
obnoXius? Answer that! Do you not
know that there is a form of Christianity
which must be taught in its entirety, or
not taught at all, which is not a negation
of principles, but the assertion of truth.
You would give the Catholic child an OPP
portunity threading the "pure unadultera-
ted Word of God, !" but he could not raise
up his innocent hands to Mary, whom he
loves so much. You might hand him q
history wherein he reads of the gIOries of
the Reformation, but he should hear moth
ing about the cOnquestS and triumphs of
the Catholic Church.
We often cite the examples of Prussia,
and hold her up as the great first model OF
common euucaJlOn. ana yet, strange 10
say, we act thereby contrary to the course
she pursues in this most essential matter.
In France where Catholics are in the ma
jority, provisions is made by law for the
support of schools according to the tenets
of the minority Can we not, in this free
republic have laws regulating education,
mt least, as equitable as those of countries,
we are sometimes pleased to call despo-
tic?
You have said that demand more than
the proportion of the taxes which the Cath
olics of Knoxville actually pay, when /
merely asserted that a parent-meaning
one who pays taXes-is entitled TO his pro
rata if he wished TO educate his child at
home. | demand nothing but justice and
fair play. This demand for generations
yet unborn. l have no ambition whatev-
er7-no desire to appear thus publicly be-
fore the good citizens of Knoxville, and /
would regret very much if the action taken
by me in this matter should appear like
forcing my own peculiar views on a gem
erous and liberal people,. have not sought
this discussion L was content to lelve the
schools in the hands of the City Govern
ment, and know that the members of the
Council would endeavor to act well and
wisely l could not avoid replying to
the communication of lone of Very
Many" especially when illusions by no
means gratifying were made TO myself.
Let the question be discussed in all its
bearings, and fear not for the result but
q let justice be done, although the heavens
fall" NJ. j. FINNEGAN.