The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-09-18
NOT "SECTARIAN" BUT "MOR-
MON"
Editors Herald:

Editors Herald:
At the end of the editorial comments
on the Liberal party's principles and do
ings in your paper of this morning, the
occasion of which was the school meet
ing in the Seventh District last evening,
occurs the following: IF there is any
thing under the sun which the people
constituting the bulk of the population
hereabout can do 10 satisfy the other
element for even the brief space of
twenty-four short hours, will not the
latter kindly indicate what it is, and
thus give the majority chance to be
obligingP The position OF the Liberal
party on education is illustrated by the
numerous and costly schools, several OF
them free, and all taught by first-class
teachers, which the members of that
partyhave been the means of establishing
in this city and other towns of Utah. In
no other place in the world, probably,
could they be forced into the attitude,
as at last nights meeting, of even
seeming to stand in the way OF
education. Why they are here forced
into that position is well understood by
everybody. The school house to be
built with the proposed tax will be for
Mormon school, and to he 4 Mormon
school the Gentiles cannot send their
children. Therefore they hold 1t un-
just to tax them to furnish facilities for
such a school, and every fair-minded
man must admit it, though l know it
begins to be claimed that the Mormon
schools are not sectarian schools. Your
reporter describing said meeting says:
Mr.. Van Dam directed few shafts
at the folly of the Liberals in accusing
the district schools of encouraging sec
tartan teachings.
1t is no difference what is taught in
the so-called public schools of Utah, or
who teaches. The Mormon Church
maintains and teaches practices that to
the Gentiles are degrading and corrupt
ing. There is no social interchange be-
tween Gentle and Mormon, mainly on
this account. If such is the fact as re-
CARDS grown people, how much more as
regards children, who cannot be ex-
pected to have much wisdom or discre
ton, and who are so easily contami-
mated and corrupted There is no such
bar between the other sects. A member
of any Protestant sect can afford to have
his children mingle in school with those
of any other Protestant sect, or with the
!
Catholics object to the Protestant schools
that they are too secular. Neither re-
CARDS the schools OF the other as spe-
cially dangerous places for their child
1 ren's morals, but they do insthe case Of
the Mormon schools. The later are
not ''sectarian, in the ordinary sense Of
the word; they are Mormon, with all
that the word implies. Therefore, while
the GentileS pay the Territorial school
tax, which only indirectly benefits them
and tax themselves heavily TO build
schoolhouses of their own, and to main
tain them. and pay tuition OF from $20
. to $50 year for each child taught in
them, and support 4 number of abso-
lutely free schools besides, they object
: to being assessed a heavy special
> tax in addition, to furnish school facil-
titles of which they cannot avail them
selves. And they justly regard such
action as that taken by the meeting last
night, under all the circumstances, a.
mere robbery III the name and under
the protection of law.
Could the Mormons forego resort to
this injustice, this legal pocket-picking,
? tax only the people who can avail them
: selves of the proposed new school
, facilities, and pass the hat among the
Gentiles for contributions, have nc
doubt they would be assisted literally
: on the ground of the general Gentle in
terest in education, and because any edu-
: cation is better than none.
o. j. HoLLIsTER.