St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-06-23

the hundreds and their numbers ever in
creasing with alarming rapidity? These
innocent, confiding children looked in
their infancy with the instincts of nat
ure to their fathers and mothers to
feed them, te c!othe them and to train
them up in the way they shonld 60,
that they might not depart from it when
old; and we, heartless and unnatural
parents, turned them over to a political
machine in the hands of the state that
ground them to pieces limb by limb.
What fond parent would send his in
nOcent little boy or girl to school if he
knew that smallpox were raging within
it's walls? Is it any less the duty Of
parents to see that they are not expos
ing their little ones to the still greater
danger of moral corruption? 1t is to be
feared that on the great day of reckon
ing many public school graduates will
rise in Judgment, not against that SyS-
TEN, but against the Indifferent parents
who forfeited their God-given right and
duty to control the education of their
children by having them trained up ''in
such manner as they believed best cal
culated to secure their greatest happi-
ness, temporal and eternal?"
Were it within the scope of this article,
l might go further and show that the
feeble attempt on the part of the state
to teach at least a Smattering OF moral
ity was necessarily anti Christian. and
in reality fast sweeping Christianity
from the face of the land. 1t has been
claimed by those who ought to know,
that the Roman Catholic church alone
has lost 100000 of her children
through the agency of state-cOntrolled
education; and if this powerful organi-
zation, which we all know obtains such
tremendous grip on her vOtarieS. has
lost so heavily, what must have been the
havoc wroughtamo the other denomi-
nations? But shall allow only one wit
ness to testify OH this point,as deem it
somewhat foreign to my subject. DIR.
Platt, OF Grace church, San Francisco,
said in his sermon, Oct 81. 1877: ''As
PrOtestants we should ChristianiZe our
education, because. first. if our secular
schools were instituted exclusively to
build up Professionalism. they were a
great blunder, for they are breaking it
down. Secular schools in the interest
of Professionalism are great blunder.
SeculariSm saves nOthing,-nOt
even itself. AS to Protestant
ism, it is only a question of time when
our present system will render it dead
factor. The issue is by these schools
narrowing the contest down to Roman
ism on the one hand and infidelity on
the other"
The struggles of all the leading de-
nominations to maintain schools and
colleges of their own. and the untiring
efforts of such societies as the Y. M. c.
A. all over the country, to preserve at
least the semblance OF Christian belief
among American youth, sufficiently at
test the truth of the assertion that the
general tendency of our secular school
system is anti-ChrIstian.
The weaknesses and failings of the
system are becoming so apparent that
desperate efforts are made to conceal
them or repair them by means of such
super-adaed features as ''high Schools"
''art schools" manual training
Schools" experimental FARMS" and
the like. Of course all these are ex-
cellent in themselves, but it is useless
to graft live branches on dead trunk.
You cannot thus rectify wrong priu-
ciple;;
an idea from the Minneapolis Tribune
of the Goth ult., ''is as sensible as to
take the other old proverb ALPS we'll
that ends well,' and from it arguing the
morality and propriety of robbery, pro-
viaed the thief, after enjoying life of
license and luxury at the expense of
some person he had robbed, should at
his death bequeath his stolen fortune to
some deserving and useful charity"
Where, then. are we to look for the
remedy tor the terrible evils we
have been considering for the last
four weeks? Certainly not to any of
the churches or all of them COM
bined. Even if one of them were
so fortunate as to suggest the true rem
edy, petty jealousy and spite would pre-
vent the others from uniting with it..
Indeed, believe the opposition of some
of the leading denominations to the
public school system is one of the chief
reason why American fathers and
mothers have so long borne with the
unWarrantable usurpatiOn of their
rights by the state and been blind
to the frightful and disastrous
consequences of such usurpation.
Moreover, it would be as absurd to call
upon any single denomination to defend
our common country from foreign in
vasion as to leave it to any one OF the
sects to settle a nOn-religiOus question
of permanent Importance to every man.
woman and child in the land. In my
next article | shall point out what ap-
pears to me to be the only common
ground upon which all, of whatever
creed, race or party they may be, can
unite, shoulder to shoulder, as Ameri-
can citizens, to remedy the evils which,
if left to themselves, will soon gnaw
away the vitalS of our national exist
ence. AMERICAN CITIZEN.
To be concluded next Sunday.l