The record-union., 1893-12-18
DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND
IN NEW YORK.

The scheme for dividing the school fund
is well on foot in New York, and is now
one of the chief topics of debate in the
Empire State. Petitions are out, emanat-
ing from Cathlic Church authorities. ask
ing the Legislature by means of bill al
ready prepared to allot to the parochial
schools share of the school fund, on the
basis of the per capita allowed by the
State for public school education.
Such a proposition cannot be made
without exciting a warm, even bitter
debate. We have not much fear that the
scheme to divide the funds will succeed.
The men who vote for it in the Legislature
will dig their political graves, and the
party that promotes and indorses such
scheme will pronounce its own doom.
The National League for the Protection of
American Institutions has entered its
protest already, and opened an active
campaign against the petitioners.
This league is non-political and nom
sectarian. Its prime aim is to have adopted
into the Constitution of the United States
provision forbidding any State to appro-
pirate public funds in aid of any sectarian
institution whatever. The league has
among It's leaders some of the most emil
nent men of the nation. the foremost pub
licists and thinkers of the time, nearly
all the great educators, and host OF the
representative business classes, besides
some two hundred and ffty-fve thou
sand other members. 1t is an open-door
organization, works with the blinds up
and the portals open, and makes no con-
cealments whatever.
The amendment which it urges was
proposed by President Grant in mes
sage to Congress. This amendment was
introduced into both houses year and a
half ago, and was referred, and we be-
heve that the Senate committee gave it
approving report, while the House COM
mittee did not act at all. Nineteen States
of the Union have provisions in their
Constitution covering the ground COM
pletely, sought by the amendment to the
Federal Constitution. So that it is safe to
forecast that if Congress ever submits the
question of the amendment, it will be
adopted by the requisite number of States.
In that event, the whole matter of the di-
vision OF school funds will be settled, and
in a manner likely to prove effectively
lasting.
In the meantime, however, issue has
been joined in New York, and the cam
paign it involves promises to be one of
painful interest. The Catholic societies
make an open and undisguised fight
for their claim, holding that as they are
religionists, believing that religious in
strUction in connection with juvenile
education is essential to proper building
up of youth in morals, and as the scheme
of the State is to secure secular instruc-
ton only, and properly so, therefore
where parochial schools fill that bill to
the satisfaction of the examining boards,
1t is merely common justice to allow the
fund that is saved by the withdrawal of
parochial pupils from public schools, to
be used in payment for the conduct of
such schools. Moreover, that when this
is refused. the people who send to the
parochial schools are taxed for that
which, under conscience, they receive no
benefit from, and cannot without offend
ing their religious belief as to what con-
stitutes q good moral education.
On the other hand the league opposes
the petitioners on the ground that the
scheme of the State is and can safely be
only that which wholly ignores sects and
creeds. and that promotes public educa-
ton to the end that youth may be trained
through education to lives useful to the
State. That religious instruction is a
matter wholly distinct from secular edu-
cation, and that if one is hidden by con-
science to instruct his child in a given
direction, that is a matter in which the
State can have no concern.
That division of the school fund would
be step in the direction of the union Of
church and State, and that it is therefore
dangerous TO take it. That the safety Of