The Progress., 1893-03-18

I4tI tREE SCEOOL n Nd.
We have our school questions con
fronting MS The pope Of Rome has sem
his delegate to this great nation, and il
a most remarkably wise manner ant
with patriotic breadth of view. which
seems to me impossible to suWh a man
has decided that problem and in the only
possible way it ever Will be decided
that is, in favor of the free school sys
TEN; that there shall be no interior
ence with the building up of the public
school system of America. 1t carried
dismay into the hearts of this miserable
the American free school system. With
the cunning Of a true Jesuit, these men
have introduced into the legislature q
measure proposing to divide the school
fund and maintain parochial schools al
public expense. The proposition pro
poses ostensibly to be exceedingly patri-
otto.
1t is Jesuit undertow from the order
Of the pope undoing what the pope has
already done in the first edict he issued.
The men who are fathering it are simply
the unconscious tools in the hands OF
| shrewder men, who, back of them, are
seeking to stir up bitter war on this
question. Their proposition is that the
school fund of the state of New Jersey
shall be separated-that is, that where
there are children gathered in parochial
schools the state shall pay out of its
treasury $500, 900 into the hands of teach
ers who are under the control of the
priests. 1t is a simple proposition to di-
vide the school fund for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining sectarian
schools when the people themselves have
refused to maintain them.
IL as the duty today of Catholic and
Protestant, an the rery beginning of that
attempt to diride the free school fund IN
the interest Of SectdridRism, to crush It
an ats rery birth and TO stamp upon a.
NTH an emphasis, 'rih a po,cer, that
shall not be misunderstood either by the
friends or enemies Of the public school;
IN America.
Flrst-The effort made in that legisla,
ton to divide the school fund is piece
of Jesuitical trickery and misrepresents
both the pope of Rome and the Catholic
people in America today. | say that
that proposition is against the popes ut,
terances. He distinctly declared that
there should be entire freedom on this
question; that the people shall send their
children where they please. In the Prot,
estant church we do the same. If a man
does not want his children to mingle
with the mob, he has the right to send
him to private school. But if he says,
II have taken my child from the public
school and will not contribute my share
of the school fund, that is a different
proposition altogether, and would be the
entering wedge of what would practical
ly be a revolution
Cardinal Gibbons, the highest Roman
ecclesiastic in America today, voices the
desire of the pope himself that there |
shall be no subsidy between the state and
the Catholic church in America. be
knows, as true born American citizen,
that the prosperity of the Catholic
church depends on keeping her lands
out Of the treasury of the country and
keeping the hand of the officehOlder off
the throat of the ecclesiastie So the
men who make those propositions mis-.
the authority at Rome and the
highest representative of that authority
here in America.
RELIGIOUS INSTBCCTION.
Any man who attempts to divide tho
school fund after what has been said
attempts to unsettle what has been al /.
ready settled. What more right has a
to do it than Baptist or Pres,
byterian or Episeopalian? We send our
children where we please. If we want tho
luxury of q private school, we pay for it.
md if Catholics want private schools {
ct them pay for it themselves. | want
% read to you from The Tablet, Catholic
newspaper published in the city of New [
York, On this subject: i
The pretense of the enemies of our I
,ubIc schools that the schoolroom is a 9
'oiat of attack against the faith of Cath (
bc children is preposterous and is cal G
1lated to excite the Indignation and re- S
eminent OF non-Catholics who know it 7
} be untrue. Neither is it true, as pre- C
'nded. that there is any attempt made a
the pubic schools to lead the young /
Ito indifference with regard to all reli- Q
on, which is sure to end in infidelity. b
ow, it may be asked, can the teaching
reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, o
nging and kindred branches taught n p
If public schools conduce to indiffer- O
ice to religion or loss of faith? Is j
ere not quite as much danger incurred <
learning any ordinary branch of bust Il
SIS or any of the mechanical trades? {,
Children attending the public schools
we, besides, Saturdays and Sundays
ID the hours not spent in the school it
ON, which may be devoted to religious r,
structions if those whose duty it is to lie
part such instruction perform it. VI
The separate education of the youth III
the country tends to destroy the prin- d,
pie of hornogeneity in our population, In
Gates suspicion and distrust i'm its a