The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-11-30
No School and State, a. veil ~ no Church and
State!
LETTER OF eERRrT SMITH TO CHARLES
STEBBTNa.

S@sDA1sS'
PErERBoRo, NOVEMBER S, 1873,
Charles stebbins, Esq. Casanova.
My Dear Sri address this letter to
you becauae number you among the deep-
~ thoughtful and wisely benevolent men
ofmy acquaintance.
1t is now some twenty or thirty years
since began to speak and write upon the
radical evils of our common school system.
So Intense still ia my feeling in regard to
them that, while life lasts and these evils
last, must continue to speak and write
upon them.
All admit the paramount right of parents
to choose and control the education Of their
children, and their paramount obligation
to defray the cost of it. But many appre-
bend that if this be left exclusively to pa
rents, a large share of tho children will
remain uneducated, and will by their
ignorance and it's attendant vices curse
their homes and their country. Hence the
state "a relied on to supply the lack. But
offerings will flow in, and far more than
equal what is raised by taxation. This,
however, is denied and the denial rests
upon the assumption that, before the COM
mon school passed into the hands of gov
eminent, the education provided in it was
neither OF 80 high grade nor so generally
acquired, as 1t has been since. But whether
this assumption be wrong or right, it does
not follow that the school would suffer,
no,o or hereafter, by the withdrawal of the
aid OF government. In the former half
century of our national existence our faith
ers, impoverished by one war and much
reduced BY another, were obliged to yield
education. They had to struggle for the
material comforts and absolute necessaries
OF life. Their supreme concern was not to
feed and clothe the mind but to feed
and clothe the body. In the latter
half we have risen into happier circum-
stances, and are free to engage in the higher
work of mental cultivation. We are now
able to do much more in the department of
educatIon than we were in the infancy of
our nation, and we are too we'll disposed
TO DO 1t to need government to compel US
to do it. Our rich men of the present gem
GRAFTON, far SURPRISING in this respect the
rich men of monarchical countries, have
learned to pour out their money like water
In the cause of human improvement. They
give hundreds Of thousands aud even mil
lions to advance the interests of education;
and the people at large have come into
such an appreciation of the benefits of the
school, that they no longer need to be tax
ed to extend them, but only left free to ex-
tend them.
is an impertinence little less than its med
ding with the Church. A lawyer, than
whom there is no ADLER in the land and
who it as eminent for integrity as for abili-
ty, writes me : 81 am against the Govern
ment's being permitted to do anything
which can be entrusted to individuals un-
der the equal regulation Of general laws"
But how emphatically should the school
be held to be the concern and care of indi-
viduals instead of the government 1t is
not extravaganza to say that government is
no more entitled to q voice In the school
than In the Church. Both are, or ought to
be, religious institutions-and in the one
important respect that the average scholar
10 of q more plastic and docile age than the
average attendant on the church, the school
has greatly the advantage Of the church.
admit the great importance Of having
the common school education as we'll nigh
universal as possible. Nevertheless it is
better that this education should not reach
az many than that the hand of government
tain manly and independent spirit in the
people-nothtng indeed is so essential to
their national life-as the keeping of gov
eminent within its normal and narrow Ii
mits. A people who hang helplessly on
government, and, instead ofdoing their own
work, look to government to do it for them,
make usurper of their government and
children of themselves. And, just here,
let me say that while every work in the
department of morals and religion, includ-
ing especially the training Of children, is
to be done By the people, the sole work of
government ia to WELD it's brute force for
the protection of the people.
The signs that this evil of State educa-
ton is approaching its end are Multiplying.
Among them is the rising up Of the great
body Of the Roman Catholics against it.
No wonder that they feel themselves to be
cruelty oppressed by it. When the Roman
Catholics Of Ireland were compelled to cup
port the English Church in addition to
their own, all Americana sympathized with
them. But is not the oppression of our
Roman Catholics the same in principle as
was thatf Ours sets their hearts on train
ing their children to be Catholics from their
infancy. Hence they naturally desire to
have their schools such as will promote
this warmly cherished object. But how
can they support their own schools at the
same time that they are taxed to sustain
the State school3 Here is a burden that
presses heavily not upon their conscience
only but upon their property also-all the
more heavily upon their property, since, as
q people, they are not rich-certainly not
SO SO rich as the Professionals, whose children
they are with such fragrant injustice |
tn balm Cd Ia =.