The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-07-11
:. Conversations of Our Club
By orestes A. Brownson.

The discussion of the public schoo
question by our debaters is directed
to the advisability of the church &C
cepting the secular education provided
by the state and supplementing it by
Sunday school instruction. Religion
cannot be taught in state schools be
cause people of one faith will not sub
NIT to be taxed for the propagation
of doctrines in which they do not be
lieve
CONVERSATION TX CONTINUED
The child, l repeat" said O'Flan
agan, belongs to the parent, not to
the state, and therefore, the parent
not the state, is the legitimate edu.
Gator"
The parent has the right" an
swered John, before the state, to
choose the school and the religion in
which he will have his child edu-
Gated, but he has not the right to say
his child shall not be educated at all,
for the public good requires all to be
educated, to some extent at least.
The assertion that the child belongs
to the parent and not to the state,
is not true, without some important
reserves. The child belongs in part
to society in which ne is born and is
to live; in part to the church into
which he is born by baptism. Both
society and the church have claims on
the child, which the parent has no
right to resist. The parent has no
right to bring up his child thief,
robber. a murderer, or vagabond, or
to hinder him from being taught the
true religion, and approaching the sac
raments of penance and the eucharist,
as often as the church judges proper.
The dominion of the parent over the
child is far from being absolute, and
is shared with him by society and the
church. On this point some of our
Catholic publicists have forgotten the
Christian and lapsed into the old
Graeco-Roman order of thought, and
have laid down principles as unsound
as they are ill-timed. Even good
cause is injured by being defended |
on unsound principles.
"The state" said De Bonneville,
sis bound to defend society, and
may summon to it's aid all the forces
society possesses. If it may de-
fend, it may foresee the danger and
guard against it. If, in it's wisdom,
it judges the secular education of all
its children necessary, it has the
right reserving to the spiritual au
thority, represented before the law
Oy the parent, all it's rights-to pro-
vide for that education at the pub
ic expense, and to make it compul-
sorry. So far the child belongs to
society, represented by the state. The
country, we will say, is in danger,
he enemy is on it's frontiers. an in
yasion is imminent, the child and
leeded in the emergency, every adult,
able to bear arms, and may be call (
ID out by the civil power, and sent to :
meet the invader, to fight, to Stay or :
re slain. I abominate the doctrine of :
.ycurgus, Plato and modern Social :
SITS and red-republicans, that the
hid belongs exclusively to society, :
nd that the state may take him as ;.
DON as born and train him up, or to =
xpose him to be trained up. in re-
gion which is not mine and which
abhor So far as the state is con- =
erned the religion of the parent is .
le religion of the child, till the child !,
old enough to choose religion r
U himself" v
And, therefore" added Father s
0hn, the state is bound to keep G.
S public schools free from sectar- fl
nism, or in other words. such as Ie
lall not interfere with the religion N