The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-07-18
CONVERSATION *. tcontinued.)

ct would do So" said Father John,
eff these public schools were really
| free from sectarianism; but, unhap-
PLY. this is far from being the case.
I willing believe the sectarianism is
not universal, and is less than some
times represented. | have, too, more
confidence than some of my friends in
the ability of our children to resist
| its effects, even where it is worst But
in too many places the public schools
violate the letter and the spirit of the
law establishing them. The reading
and text books used, even when no
complaint is to be made of the teach
ers, are saturated with a sectarian
spirit and filled with illusions and re-
marks insulting to the Catholic re-
ligion. All Catholic books are in most
instances carefully excluded from the
school libaries, purchased at the pub
lie expense, on the ground that they
are sectarian; and yet, in many in
stances these libraries are half filled
with the most flase, rabid and calum-
NOUS anti-Catholic books that can be
found The Protestant public seem
to make it point of honor that the
Protestant version of the Bible shall
be read in them. Though | do not
thing much harm accrues to the Cath
Ole child from this, yet the book Pro
testants call the Bible is as much a
sectarian book as Dowling's History
Of the Popes, and just construction
of the law excludes it. 1t is not true
and correct version of the Holy Scrip
lures, as all learned Professionals them
selves know and admit Save in the
large cities and towns, where Catho-
lies are numerous and have votes, lit
tie fairness or justice is done to the
Catholic child, especially if the child
of foreign-born parents, The children
of the laboring Irish suffer a great
deal. They are treated with great
harshness and ridicule in the same
school where children of wealthy or
educated American Catholics are
treated with all the tenderness and
consideration shown to the children of
non-Catholic parents. The children of
what are called the low Irish, in con-
sequence of their peculiar habits and
manners, and the strong national pref
udices against the class to which they
belong. rather than in consequence of
being Catholics, find themselves in an
inferior position in the public schools,
and are subjected to numerous vexa-
tons and annoyances. These things,
when we consider this class of our
children are numerous, and those for
whom we should feel7the most solicit
tude, and when we further consider
the inability of large portion of their
parents-poor in a strange land exiles
and ignorant Themselves give
them proper home education, we can
not but feel obliged to adopt the pol
icy wherever practicable, wherever we
are able, of establishing schools of our
own. These things compel us, even
where we cannot establish superior
schools of our own, to tolerate rather
than fully approve the public schools.
In this think find myself fully sus-
tanned by the American hierarchy.
who have recommended the forma-
ton, wherever practicable, of Catholic
schools"
But, unhappily," said Diefenbach,
those Of your Catholic schools which
have come under my observation are,
for the most part, far inferior to your
public schools, and rather fitted to |
keep your Catholic population a for
eign colony in the country, oppressed
by sense of inferiority, than to make |
them an integral portion of the Amer
lean people, animated by an independ-
ent spirit, and feeling themselves
standing in all respects on a footing
of equality with their mont Catholic |
fellow citizens"