The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-12-11
THE NEW YORK HERALD AND THE
SCHOOL QUESTION

The New York Herald, in its Thursdays
issue, in considering the presidents mess
age, says that its one "serious blunder' is
the recommendations on the school and
church questions, and that, otherwise, it is
" admirable :" that the blunder consists
" in giving life to an issue which does not
" exist )" and that "there is no more dam
" ger to the free schools of America than
" there is to the free press. The phantom
e of religious interference in education is
" a political will-o -the-wisp which appears
"when party is in Distress" We trust
the Herald is correct as to the absence of
danger and, it being recognized as good
Catholic authority, it ought to be well in
formed. If. however, there is no danger,
there certainly can be no harm in putting
up the bars and preventing the possibility
of the occurrence of danger.
In opposition to this last expressed opin-
ion of the Herald, we might oppose the
opinion of the Freendns Journal Cath
olic-which says that Francis Herman,
United States senator from New York, is
false TO his church because he says that he
favors non-sectarian schools or the recent
attempt made to defeat the non-sectarian
school amendment to the constitution of New
JorGov, but wo have, even, better authority
that of the New York Herald itself.
In its issue of Sunday, September 8,
1876, in an elaborate, leading editorial, on
the occasion of the opening of the public
schools in New York city, it considers the
school question at length. 1t says that we
may as well understand "the contest which
is arising out of this school question"
now as at any other time. 1t is not, it
says, "a religious question, but question
of the dominion of the priest over the
"people." Our school system abridges
the rights of no church, but places the
children of every citizen on an equality
which it should be the pride of the state to
maintain, 'but we are aware that con-
q" flict is inevitable. In Ohio the question
"has already entered into the canvass. "
If the issue comes in the form that now
Seems inevitable, in the end it must in
"jure those by whom it is sought even
more than the class which seeks to avert
it." The Issue, it says, is not new one,
it is older than the idea of popular educa-
ton. as old as the "rule of obedience,
(Which both kings and popes have sought
"to enforce;" but secular education is
new, and is bound to triumph over church
and sect. So far as the church of Rome
is concerned, it says that the conflict COM
menced in the last decade and, after refer
ring to the struggles in the past, it pro-
ceeds as follows: SIN America the con-
I" fict takes different but not less certain
shape. Here the church seeks to assert
her power through the destruction of the
"schools upon which the people depend.
/" 1t is amazing that policy so shortsight-
" ed and so sure of defeat should be adopt
''ed by an earnest and intelligent priest
hood /; but we can no more close our
"eyes TO the fact than to any'other phen-
omena."
If the Herald was right then, it certainly
cannot be right now. If the conflict was
then, as it 80 emphatically states, ''lnevita-
"ble," if the short sighted policy of at
tempting the destruction of the public
school system had been adopted, as 1t
states it has, then the idea or danger of re-
ligious interference in education is some
thing more than ''phantom," something
more than political Will-o'-the-wisp, A"
for, surely, three mouths have not changed
the situation, save in so far as public senti-
ment may have been aroused and the de-
termination come to of warding off the
possibility of danger, of avoiding the
inevitable conflict" by putting the bars
up in advance. If the Herald was correct.
September 8, there is necessity for con-
stitutioDal amendment of the nature sug-
gested by the president If it was mis-
taken, then good men of all creeds, Catho-
lies and Protestants alike, can unite in the
support of such an amendment 80 that.
hereafter, there will be no excuse for any
feeling of alarm even by the most timid.
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