Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-03-11
The Roman Cathollc Questsen.

aims and tendencies, their principles
and results; in their influence upon the
character and future of the pupils, and
their effect upon the erespectability, safe
| ty, and prosperity of the State. This
necessity is forced upon the intelligent
Roman Catholic fathers and mothers
who know that papal decree on mixed
education has no infallibility, who value
American institutions and the rights OF
their children as American citizens, and
who look with parental care to their ht-
| ting instruction.
Let the Jesuits once become to the
State, as regards education, an iDapsriua'
In iaperio,-let them, independently q
the civil power, determine the charactsr
of the studies and the selection and az
proval of the teachers, taking care, as
the Syllabus directs, that the schools
shall not be in conformity to the will Of
the rulers or the prevailing opinion Of
the age, but shall be joined to the Ro.
man Catholic Church,-and on the prin-
ciple that he who controls the educatiol,
of a country controls its future, they
may may with reason regard their
hoped-for control of the schools as the
capture of the outworks and bulwarks
of the Republic, whose guns may be
turned against all that shall remain of
its political and religious freedom.
But the antagonism between the
Christian teaching given in our public
schools in regard to chastity, truth, and
justice, ETC., and that authorized by the
Pope on these points, is, as will present.
ly appear, very striking; and the views
of the Roman Court as to the intellec
tual education which they approve for
their subjects are equally opposed to
those of the American people for what
they demand for their children as the
future sovereigns of the Republic.
Cardinal Cullen, in his evidence be-
fore the Educational Committee, given
in their report of 1870, frankly stated
his opinion that education should be
limited to "the three Rs, the reading of
the Scriptures, and the history of the
Church. Too much education would
make the poor discontented with their
lot, and insult them for following the
plough, using the spade, hammering
iron, and building walls"
A view similar to that of Cardinal
Cullen was expressed to Mr.. Dexter A.
Hawkins, of the New York bar, by His
Exeelleney Cardinal Antonelli, who sail
'.that he thought it better that the chill
dren should grow up in ignorance than
be educated in such system of schools
as the State of Massachusetts, supports.
That the essential part of education was
the catechism; and while arithmetic
and geography and other similar studies
might be useful, they were not essen
tial."
Without referring to similar statistics
abroad of reformatories and industrial
schools, we find at home census and po-
lice returns all telling the same story
that Roman Catholic schools, as COM
pared with our own, are propaganda of
ignorance, superstition, vagrancy, pau
perism, and crime; that they enganger
society by recruiting the dangerous
classes; that they burden society with a
load of taxation, and that they endanger
the stability of our institutions bv de-
basing our civilization. We shall pres
emily ask how far those influences are
accounted for by the character of their
teachings.
Mr. Hawkins has shown from the
United States census of 1870 the COM
parative number of illiterates, paupers'
and criminals, to every 10000 inhabi-
tants, produced respectively by the Ro-
man Catholic parochial schools, the pub
lie schools in twenty-one States, and by
the public schools in Massachusetts.
When they are arranged for more easy
comparison, it is easy to appreciate the
objections of Alderman Reardon and his
friends, of Cambridgeport, to transfer
their children from the State schools of
Massachusetts to that of Father Scully.
TO EVERY 10000 INHABITANTS.
Illifar Pou- fIr;mi