The Irish standard., 1905-05-06

AoA AIS eAlSIeuCe. 1 soon discovered q
worthy 1rishman, who in reply to my
| question, informed me that this was
the new building for the parochlal
school connected with St. So and Sos
church, and that when completed it
would accommodate fifteen hundred
scholars.
Here, said l to myself, is another
example of that almost superhuman
wisdom which guides the operations
OF the Roman Catholic Church. Every.
where, even among the poorest inhab-
itants of our great cities, these people
are paying their school tax without
word of complaint. In addition to this
heavy tribute they are also quietly
finding the money for the erection not
only of splendid churches, but also of
costly schoolhouses.
This quiet season of preparation,
| however, will not always last The
time is not far distant when a large
proportion, if not the majority, of
Roman Catholic children will be fur
! nished with the means of education in
| their parochial schools. Then will
| arise a demand, either for emancipa-
| tion from the requirement of taxation
for the support of public schools, or for
division and allotment of their share
| of the fund thus produced The result
of such a demand is easy to foresee.
1t will be successful in spite of opposi-
tion, for it will be founded on the eter-
nal principles of justice. To compel a
man who is spending his money for
| the education of his children in the
manner which he believes to be for the
| highest good-to compel such a man
J to submit to burdensome taxation for
the maintenance of system of edu-
| cation which he believes erroneous
| and dangerous, is the height of inius-
tice
"The first dawning perception of this
| truth is evident in the recent elimina-
tion of the Bible from the public
schools. This is an attempt to secure
justice by removing one cause of COM
plant against the public school sys-
| TEN. But while it removes one object,
it creates another which is far more
serious. The complete secularization
of the education thus provided de-
prives it of the greater portion of its
value. 1t is useless to assert that in
tellectual training will make men more
moral, or that it will add to the secur-
ity of the state. History teaches the
contrary. The secular education i'm
parted in our schools produces men
| and women fitted only for those forms
| of worldly activity which requires lit
| tie or no moral discernment. The am
bilious, INSCRIPTIONS adventurer is the
J legitimate product OF such an educa-
tion and of such characters the world
has never known dearth. The great
want of the age is moral training; but
that can never be obtained at purely
secular schools. For this reason the
Roman Catholic Church is right in it's
theory of churchly education for the
young. If the clergy are to influence
the community otherwise than by
their lives and their official ministra-
tions; if they are to retain their hold
upon the masses, they must fashion
the minds of the rising generation.
Children who are trained to go to
church, to respect the rites and the
ministers of religion, to believe in a
future state and in the existence of
God who rules the universe, can never
wholly escape from the influence of
such ideas. But the children of the
irreligious families-and they form the
majority-who attend a school that
has been deprived of all religious color
and of nearly all moral flavor, receive
no such impression; and they natural
ly grow up Indifferent to everything
but the pleasures and profits of this
world. 1t need excite no surprise that
paganism so greatly abounds when we
are doing our very best to create pa
gans even out of the children of the
church. Our public school system is
splendid monument of self-sacrifice
and of zeal for the improvement of
mankind; and it should never be Who'll
ly abandoned. But it has far outgrown
its legitimate sphere, and by misap.
propriating certain of the most import
ant functions of the church it has we'll
nigh paralyzed the influence of the
church in certain directions.
"The time has come when our Prot
estant churches must resume the res
possibilities which they have re-
signed, unless they are willing to re-
main passive spectators of the pros
porous growth of indifferentism and
infidelity. BY the side of every church
should stand the parochial school
house. Then the unjust system of
school taxation which now disgraces
our civilization would soon become a
thing of the past. The morals of the
pulpit would then find their way
| ~.