Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-03-13
ATTACK UPON THE SCHOOLS.

ATTACK UPON THE SCHOOLS.
Pittsburgh CommercialGaze
The Roman Catholic hostility to the
American school system is discussed in
Harper's Weekly as "a sign of the
times" The basis of this opposition is
said to be ''the wel-founded conviction
that the natural tendencies of American
thought and life are not friendly to the
Roman dogmas, and that American
born children of Catholic parents are
very independent of ecclesiastical con-
troll. These tendencies are justly be-
lieved to be strengthened by education
in schools which are free from such
control, and the most effective means of
maintaining the control is to prevent the
attendance at such schools" Our con-
temporary finds no fault with the Rom
ish Church for its criticism of the public
school system as goddess, or ignorant,
extravagant or foolish, nor does it gain
say the right to advocate sectarian di-
vision of the school money and thereby
"exasperate the angry lines of religious
differences" it even goes so far as to
concede that the Romish priesthood
''may insist that the whole government
should be placed in the hands of a sec
tartan hierarchy, and that the mandate
of Pontiff who is infallible upon the
most important of all subjects will be
probably wiser upon other subjects than
the voice of chance representatives of a
reckless partisan majority"
These concessions are made as falling
within the limits of free speech, under
the policy that sit is wiser to let every
body say what he thinks, and not to re-
strain him until his words become di
rect and necessary incitement to wrong
doing" 1t is when coercion takes the
place of argument that the community
must intervene in the interest of equal
liberty, an instance of which is cited in
the proposed amendment to the Consti-
tuition of New Jersey prohibiting any
local or foreign power from compelling
or preventing the attendance of children
upon any particular school. All Amer
lean citizens, Catholic parents included,
must be protected in their right to
choose the kind of school at which their
children are to be educated. "If there |
be one purpose which is distinctively
American and peculiarly invincible,"
says our contemporary, sit is that public |
schools shall be maintained inviOlate |
from sectarian control" "The PROPOSE
tion to destroy the system by abrogating
its fundamental conditions is one which
will never be approved until the Amer
ican people are essentially changed. The
Roman Church is tenacious, but in the
defense of liberty the American people
will be much more tenacious. Their
good nature and their habit of freedom
will tolerate radical differences of opin-
ion and ardent discussion of the school |
system and its faults, but unSectarian |
public schools they will maintain"
THE HEART OF THE ALLEGHANIES
Writing of a recent trip across the
mountains of West Virginia, gifted
journalist says:
Twilight on the grade is grand. The
mountain SUBMITS look like the bushy
tops of trees. The sun has disappeared
in a ball of fire at his ''jumping-off
place." but the vivid lightning of the
western sky by the still upturned illum
ing face below the horizon is in marked
contrast to the gathering shades behind
the rushing train. From shelf to shelf,
from crag to crag, from brink to brink,
we almost fly. Like flashing trans
rendering almost past belief
the fact that the scene is in the midst
Of the Alleghenies, comes bit of land
scape gardening with all the beauties of
walks and hedges and bright -hued flow
ers, a mountain brooklet tumbling
through the center-Buckhorn Wall, the
most noted and most admired view that
can be had from any known point in the
Allegheny range. To enable the road
10 span the tremendous gorges, mass
we wall of cut stone was erected for
4 distance of several hundred feet, and
more than hundred feet above the
foundation rock. AS the river makes
IN abrupt turn at right angles, a deep
canyon is opened up for miles. Range
afteI range of mountains appear behind
each other. The shadowy outlines of
single peaks steal out through the haze"
This beautiful scene is on the Balti-
more and Ohio r. r. near Grafton, W.
Va. The entire line from the Potomac
% the Ohio is majestic panorama of
,he grandest views on the continent and
Ill nndnu-od NTH hictOrin intarnSf |