The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-09-05
rhe Public schools.

I
| past. The reason of all this is obvious.
| Popular education is the legitimate out
| growth of republican institutions. govern
ment for the people and by the people is in
separable from the idea of general intelli-
| gence This ideal is only attainable by the
training of the masses at the expense of the
State. All the relations of monarchy and the
Church are in opposition. Common schools,
free from sectarian influences, ARE the first
born of our republican notions OF govern
ment, and we might be able to dispense with
the three coordinate branches ordained by our
constitution before it would be possible to
forego our public school system. However
specious the pretence upon which opposition
TO the public schools is based, however just
it may appear in the manner of its presen-
tation, its success could only have for
ultimate result the overthrow of the
Republic. We may as well understand
| the contest that is arising out of this
school question now as at any other time. 1t
is not religious question, but question of
the dominion of the priest over the people
1t involves all the old problems of the divine
right of kings to govern wrongly, and Of popes
to rule the consciences of men, and is at war
with freedom and the free expression of opin-
ion. Our school system abridges in no re-
spect the rights of the Roman Catholic
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 conflict is inevitable. In
Ohio the question has already entered into
the canvass between Governor Allen and
General Hayes. In this city we are told the
Board of Education is almost evenly divided
ON the subject of placing parochial schools
on the same basis as those already main
tanned at the public expense. The whole
issue, whether at the West or the East,
involves only evil to those seeking to pre-
cipitate it, and, if the issue comes in the
form that now seems inevitable, in the end
it must injure those by whom it is sought
even more than the class which seeks to
avert it. The popular heart is with popular
education. Any man or any class of men
who seek to destroy it or to retard its useful
ness and success may be assured of the full
weight of public displeasure before the con-
troversy is ended; and it is owing to this fact
and to the certainty of an unwise<and retro
gressive contest with every element of prog
ress that the subject rises into such promi-
nence at this time. The opening of the
public schools will be from this time hence
forward the signal for battle which can
only end in the defeat and overthrow of the
enemies of the common school system, and the
sooner this end is accomplished the better it
will be for the safety of the State and the
well being of the whole people.
This issue is not new one if we have re-
gard to the comparative newness of the COM
mon school system. Indeed it is much older
than the idea of popular education. 1t is as
old as the rule of obedience, which both
kings and popes have sought to enforce. 1t
is coeval with kingcraft and has grown with
the growth of all the attributes of kings. But
it is incompatible with republican institu-
tons Secular education is a thing apart
from any tradition which has come down to
the present generation. 1t is a new idea and
it is bound to triumph over Church and sect
and even over religion itself, if religion I'M
dertakes to oppose it. In this there is a les
son which every sect can learn to advantages;
not the Roman Church alone, but all the
subdivisions of Professionalism. Indeed, so
far ms the Church of Rome is concerned, the
conflict is one of the last decade. In the past
Rome fought her battles in Catholic coun-
tries-in Italy, in Spain, in France,
in Austria and in Southern Ger
Tn, he 4ha ctr fc,grla
is confined to the strongholds of the
Reformation. A pietist King of Prussia,
with Bismarck as his right hand, has become
the Emperor of the North In England Mr..
Gladstone has come forward as the popular
leader in the war against the Vatican. In
America the conflict takes different but
not less certain shape Here the Church
seeks to assert her power through the de-
struction of the schools upon which the
people depend. 1t is amazing that policy
so shortsighted and so sure of defeat should
be adopted by an earnest and intelligent
priesthood; but we can no more close our
eyes to the fact than to any other phenomena.
There is nothing in secular education to in
terfere with the spiritual dominion of the
Church except that personal independence
which always comes with republicanism,
and if the Catholic clergy in America think
it wise to oppose this they will find their
mistake in their own defeat. In the Church
is the proper place to teach religion, the
public schools having an entirely different
purpose. We might as well seek to carry
religious ideas and restrictions into the
factories and workshops of the city as into
our public school system, and to divide the
school fund with religious denominations
would be equivalent to destroying both
secular and sectarian education. 1t is the
duty of the State to afford mental training to
the young, while the whole subject of reli-
gious instruction is LETT to the churches, and
if both of these fulfil their own proper func-