Litchfield enquirer., 1875-04-15

be dasired because it's influence is certain ly great, and there has been so much per sonal hatred mixed with its honest oppO- sition to Grants second administration that it has been almost as much power for evil as g power for good during the years of its nominal independence.
 Secular Education.
 The proposition of the N. Y. Catholic Clergy to have their parochial schools taught at the public expense meets with opposition even from the Democratic World:
 In this way We should have sacommon schools" not only of Jews, and, for anything we can tell, ultimately of Chinse schools, and the secular common-school system would no longer be used, except as kind of Potteris field of education by the un- classified children of unknown or perfectly careless parents. Compulsory education adds a new reason why the proposition should not be adopted. The children who are compelled to attend some school may be compelled to attend the religious common school as we'll as the secular, and the State will thus appear as a direct agent in procuring proselytes for such schools as are added to it's system by sects.
 Once admit the denominational school to participation in the public funds. and there would be no room left for the com mon school. Yet we cannot but believe that our Catholic fellow citizens have some just cause of complaint No Pro testant school teacher can justly compel the children of Catholic parents to read any version of the bible. It is the belief of Catholics that the reading of the bible by children, without comment or explana- tion. is productive of evil rather than good. Their objections to its use. wheth- CT we'll or ill founded, are entitled to re- spect. Then, undoubtedly. there are many things of grossly partisan nature in our school histories. Bloody" Mary was more moral person than her half sister Elizabeth, of glorious Protestant memory. It may not be altogether fair to Catholics, or even to churchnen, to have our children taught at public expense that the Puritans were the best people in the world to be descended from. The Yankee notoriously writes or inspires the writing of all our school books, and the hand of the Yankee is very heavy when he writes of his ancestors and the folks that they didn't like and who didn't like them. The voyage of Noah was of slender im- port and the vessel he navigated very poor affair compared with the celebrated voyage of the May-fower and the landing of her Pilgrims. If Noah had foundsred, Total Deprayity would have gone down with him; but if the MaY-fower had mis- carried, there would have been no Lexing- ton, no John Brown, no Appomattox, no Reconstruction. no America in short worth mentioning, and, without, a regene- ratesAmerica, this world would be failure, and Noah would would have lived in vain.
 These facts are not of a consolotory na- ture to the descendant of the Shaugraun, and he dislikes to have them instilled in- to the tender minds of his children. When he looks to our higher education, too. he notices that it is all denominational. Yale is governed by its self perpetuating board of Congregational ministers. Yet it has grown powerful on state aid in times past; it received splendid donation from the national government only dozen years since
 There is much inconsistency and some real unfairness on the part of the ad- advocates of the non-sectarian school We ought to ezpunge every objectionable feature from our present system and then enforce it rigidly and impartially.