The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1894-03-14

sts "eontersson that the education Of
yoath should and must Be Christian: that
a goddess. secnIarixed education il IA OUT
rage upon the rights OF parents. and .
deadly mischief TO the yourg and to So
ciesy." The exclusion OF the Bible from
the schools" he says. lis chiefly the work
OF demagogues. ~ is Is the logical and
necessary outcome Of our pagan theory OF
edrcasion and Of the state"
We do rot agree with d.. Hodges o.
James Russell Lowell. or the other Prot
essants We have cited. nevertheless il is
the privilege of any American citizen 10
hold these opinions. and IL IL the priviiege
OF sny American religious denomination
90 establish denominational parochial
have right TO say il under our insssiu-
tons there shall be no ecclesiastical inter
ference with our public schools, whether
BY Pro.estanss or Catholics. Oar public
schools must be maintained IS purely
secular a. distinguished from depomins-
are 10 &c our youth for citizenship: not to
make Catholics or Protestants OF them;
We leave the religious and doctrinai train
ing TO the church. the church schools snd
the home, and the ruling forces OF the
Roman Catholic church in America are
today not the enemies Of our public
schools. however far they may individ-
ualiy think that our American public
school needs to he supplemented by paro-
chisl schools. In this many Protestants
agree with them.
The A. r. A. Is the apoca.astasis, or
progress back wards, of the hour to the
narrow intolerance Of the last century.
The early colonis,s OF New England en-
forced the same religious intolerance from
which they had fed in protest. The Pur!-
tans prosecuted the Baptists. the Quskers
and the Catholics as unrelentingly as they
had been prosecuted by Laud in England.
or as the Huguenots had been haired by
Louis the Fourteenth Of France. But the
day for such religious narrowness 10 gone.
The great schools and universities Of the
country that were originally established
as denominations schools have lost or are
rapidly losing their peculiar denomina-
tional character and are become non-sec-
tartan. The drift of tho age is toward
non-sectarian schools, high and low, and
the A. T. A. are fighting . mere phantom
when they pretend that our public schools.
our separation of church and state IN 65.-
coo 900 Of people 10 threatened by the SUI
premacy OF some q, oOo. 00e Of Catholics.
The Roman Catholic church is q patriotic
church In America; but even If il were
not. We can only contest It's growth and
actions in q perfectly legal and coustitu-
tional way. The Catholic church is guar
anteed the same rights. neither more nor
less. under the flag. that every other
church Is, SO long - il does not come into
conflict with our constitution and our
laws; aud secret political society which
seeks TO prescribe Catholic because of
his race or his religion IL as complete An
outrage of the spirit of our American in
situations, as expressed in our fundamental
constitutional separation of church and
state, as was the Knownothing order of
forty years ago or the kuklux Khan.
whose grotesque barbarism disgraced the
civilization of the South after the war.