The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-05-20

ton. A few figures will make this plain. There
are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in
week. A child generally goes to school FIVE
days in the aweek, for five hours a day.
Thus he devotes to secular education only
% hours out of l6s. And yet it is held to be
a neglect of religion 10 forget the study of
1t for such an Insignificant periodl 1t is
just as reasonable to say that boy
who studies arithmetic without any
mixture of morals is receiving an
infidel education to say
that boy who is learning to be a carpen-
ter, without being drilled in some cate
chism, is serving an infidel apprenticeship.
There is nothing to hinder children from
growing up In our public schools good Pres
byterians, good Bsptists, good Jews. or good
Catholics, if their parents do their duty.
Again, it must be objected to the system
of education in sects that it tends
to foster narrow and bigoted
views, and .draw distinctions between the
consequences by no means tend to the unity
and good-fellowsbip of the people. We are
not over tolerant of each other now and lit
tie closer association of the various elements
in the rising generation would be greatly
to the advantage of all. Moreover,
should the government acknowledge relig-
ious sects in the distribution OF public
money, it would soon assume the right TO
interfere with the sects, and control them in
the expenditure of the funds furnished, and
the result would be the old
nterminable quarrel of church and state.
Some of the worst defects of such system,
however, would be practical difficulties in its
operation. The enumeration of the differ
ent sects would afford ground for endless
pickering. In certain districts where par
tlcular creed was powerful it would have
large and prosperous schools to the d warning
OF all others, and it would control them after
the stric,est sectsrisn fashion, while in other
parts of the country professors of the same
faith would be obliged, perhaps, to attend
schools managed by their bitterest theolog
ical foes. Such division of the school funds
would be especially hard upon the Catholics
In large cities they would get along
well enough, but in country towns the scat
tered Catholic population would be left with
ceive their education, not from the state but
from some Methodist, or Episcopalian, or
Baptist community, which might furnish
them with Nast's cartoons for drawing
copies and Eugene Lawrence's TRADES for
history.
The Sentinel is decidedly OF opinion, as it
has declared already on more than one occa-
sion, that our common school system can
not, without the violation of sound the"ry
and sound practice, be altered to suit
the convenience of any creed or ma
tionality. It is necessary for the state TO
furnish education to the people, of plain,
secular character. 1t should be
who are too poor to purchase anything
else. but whatsoever wants more relig-
ion, more languages, more accom-
plishments than the state gives,
has the privilege of going to private schools
and getting them. There can be no attack
made upon the common school system on
the ground that it is costly burden. since
its expense will depend eventually upon the
amount of patronage which it re-
ceives. Ia conclusion, it may be said
that no change or revolution in the school |
system is possible without change of SEN
timent in the people. and as things now
stand, no political organization would think
Of adopting policy hostile to the schools as
Indeed it might be well for
both parties in Ohio this summer to affirm
their full faith in the secular system as the
only proper one for this country.