The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-06-20
CONVERSATION TX.
(Continued.)

j.
: try like this, for the state to estab
fish a system of education satisfac
tory to Catholics, and, therefore,
am opposed to state schools. l would
! carry the voluntary principle into ed
ucation, as we have carried it into re-
ligion."
And leave the bulk of your chill
dren to grow up without attending
any school, threw in Diefenbach.
1 would much prefer no educa.
ton to a sectarian education, or a sec.
ular education without religion re,
piled O'Flanagan.
If you could have a modification -
answered Diefenbach, but your chill
dren do not and will not grow up with.
out education of some sort. If they
nave not that of the schools, they will
have that of the streets"
But" remarked Winslow. though
we send not our children to the public
schools, we may send them to schools
OF our own. We have already nu-
merous Catholic schools. and we NAV
establish more"
But not enough, nor half enough
for all your children" remarked De
Binneville. "You have not the teach
ers nor the means for that. In Boston.
about one-half of the children of
school age are children of Catholic
parents; and the city of oBston ex-
pends annually on her public schools.
for ordinary expenses, three hundred
and thirty-three thousand dollars.
Where are the Catholics of that CITY
to obtain the half of that sum annu-
ally, together with a million of dollars
outlay for the erection of school
houses and fixtures? In the city of
New York, there are Catholic schools
Tor about one Catholic child in six or
seven, who is of proper school age
Now, what are you to do with five
sfXths or six-sevenths of your children
unprovided for? In neither Boston nor
New York have you the means to pro-
vide a proper education for all your
children. In neither city, as yet, have
you half church room or half priests
enough for your Catholic population.
The church must precede the School
house, the priest the schooImaster.
and you must provide for the sacra-
ments before providing for education.
With a church without revenues, and
Catholic population for the most
part made up Of the poorer classes of
old Europe, with the best intentions
in the world, you cannot provide for
the common school education of more
than sixth of your children, unless
TrnI Of
schools What do you propose for
these five-siXths whom you leave out
of your own schools"
1T is not necessary" replied Win
slow, that all the children of the land
should be educated in secular learn
ing. I do not find that they have been
so in the most Catholic ages and ma
lions of the world"
But are these children who attend
neither Catholic schools nor the pub
lie schools, who receive no secular
education, any better trained in their
religion?" asked Diefenbach, "than
those who do attend the public
schools? If you take your children
from the public schools where you
have not and cannot have Catholic
schools for them, you must leave them
to learn not religion and morality, but
all manner of mischief. How much
better off under a moral and religious
point of view are your children who !
run at large in the streets, associate |
with the viIest and most criminal por-
ton of the depraved population of |
modern cites are initiated, before a
dozen years of age, into every vice
and crime known to that population, !
and who grow up to be food for your
brothels, your houses of correction,
city penitentiaries, state prisons, and
the gallows,-how much better off,
even under a Catholic point of view,
are these than they who attend the
public schools, and in them acquire.
at least, habits of order and study, and
the rudiments of a solid secular edu-
cation? 1t is singular that people
canont understand that there is a
very influential, but a very undesir-
able education acquired by children
who attend no school, in the streets,
md from association with the vile and
worthless, the vicious and the crimi-
1al. | am almost scandalized at the
Indifference, the improvidence, and
litter neglect of their children by large
numbers even of Catholic parents-at
he multitudes of children lost every
Tear to the church and to society,
When little foresight, a little care,
! little ezal, little earnestness, a
title well-directed effort, might easiy
ave them to both"
Mr.. Diefenbach is unable to forego
ny opportunity Of giving vent to his
Spite" said O'Flanagan.
The Irish are not the only disorderly
eople in our cities, and Catholics do t
lot furnish the whole of our vicious g
nd criminal population. There is
nore sin, more hardened depravity,
nore deliberate malice, in a score of !
our well-dressed, wealthy, prim, i
ong-faced, canting Anglo-Saxon Yam I
ees than in the whole Celtic popula- |
on in the country"
"Mr O'Flanagan," returned Diefen- '
ach, Notwithstanding his clamorous |
must have a very mean {
pinion of his countrymen, or of his
rother Celts, or he would be far less
eady to apply my remarks specially