The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-07-18
THE SCHOOL QUESTION.
Mr.. Edwin q. Mead Before the Ma
tlonaI Educational Association.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. July 17.-At this
mornings session of the National Education
al Association in this city, Mr.. Edwin d.
Mead delivered an address on this theme:
"Has the Parochial School proper place in
American" Mr.. Mead said:
Whatever be the necessary or proper adjust
ment of authority between the State, the Church
and the Family. it is quite sure that it is in the
family that most of us are nearest home. and that
sympathies @ Of I'm men, Il the Champion Of % the paro
chial school can appear as the champion OF family
rights and family freedom, and can manage fur
guise Of Coercion, he is Certainly good strat-
egist, for that moment he certainly gains an ad-
vantage. Home is powerful word TO con1ure
with.
propose to show that all this talk about coer-
clon and injustice on the part of the State in main
tanning public schools, of which we have heard
great deal too much although happily not so much
think in these latest days as dozen years ago,
IS Just as valid and no more so, as talk against
the principles OF taxation itself; and shall show
that this interference with liberty of conscience
and family choice, with which Cardinal Manning
charges the State but of which the State is not in
Eu as @ fI pcy se # the
establishment of parochial schools in this country
from New England to New Mexico. The argu-
lie money, when perhaps this man % has no children
to send to school and this other chooses to send
his children to private school, is a very .patry
the man who is rutiied at having to pay his tax
for the new city hall or the public park or the
public Pt library which the majority has decreed,
education, and is not education the Office of the
Family and of the Church? May the State spend
public dollars for what does not relate to 'tem-
poral welfare" to the quartermaster's depart
ment of life? Let it at least not buy sermons and
poems for its library, only cook books and guide
books and Cushing'S Manual.
This Roman Catholic talk about parental au-
thorlty and family freedom in the choice of schools
is all pure felton, II strict definition Is what we
are concerned with, and that, 1 take it, is what
We want here, the sole '1iberty" which the Ro-
man Catholic parent has, when the command of
the church comes to him to send his children to
that every parish shall have its school, and that
every child of Catholic parents shall leave the
public schoolfor it as soon as 1t is officially organ
ized-1s the liberty to "get out" II he chooses to
disobey the command. 1 use the phrase of one of
the more jaunty Catholic witnesses at the recent
Boston Boston hearing: nIf a man joins the Catholic
not obliged to remain in the church any longer
than he chooses" '.Do you believe the par
as sn pnss S9S ensTss' %ss asse ns S s @
whether or not the conscience Of the parent in
terferes with that of the priest?" sItcanot inter
remain in the church iii they do not follow the
guidance of the priest. The Catholic
church doctrine" he continued, SIS doctrine of
authority IL the church makes rule to refuse
the sacraments to parent who will not withdraw
his children from the public school, the law could
be enforced. - The law OF the church is to
obey or get out"
The great Roman Catholic masses, to whom the
parochial school system is hateful, who are by
vast majority, today the staunch and grateful
supporters OF the public school, TO which they and
their children owe so much-the Roman Catholic
citizens of America. because they are citizens of
America as well as members OF the Roman Catho-
lie church. are entitled to be free from this coer
ciOn.
At the morning session papers also were
read by Right Rev. John j. Keane Of Wash
ington, d. c.. and by Cardinal Gibbons of
Baltimore, on the question, ''Should Ameri-
cans Educate their Children in Denomina-
tional Schools?"
The following is the programme for this
evening: The Legal Status of the Public
Schools, A. S. Draper. Albany, N. Y; The
Relation between State and Education, G.
Stanley Hall, Worcester, Mass; Education
al Progress of the Colored People in the
South, John Fl. Burnes, Rodney, Miss. The
Higher Education of the Negro, Geo. T.
Winston, Chapel Hill, N. G.