The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-09-28


Catholic Hierarchy, and hear
tily agree with you that this pagan
religion either ought to occupy the
same status as all other religions
with reference to our government, or
to be expunged from our midst We
are rapidly approaching the time
when this religion CD Ga misnomer)
will be the state religion, and will
act in conjunction with the state to
put the people into a thralldom such
as Spain and Italy experiences.
Now, | notice that in some of the
editorials of the Weekly jeff, which
directly bear upon this subject, you
condemn the Catholics for their an
tagonism to our secular public
schools. believe they are somewhat
justified in their criticisms; though l
daresay their parochial institutions
are even more deserving of criticism.
l think l have seen some express
ions from you anent our school sys-
TEN, which seemed derogatory. Ac-
cording to our juvenile reasoning and
sophomore observations, our present
system is an awful, HEDEOUS and
GLARING farce! From a prima facie
observation one would think our free
school system one of the greatest
boons to civilization; the Tags of ig-
norance, it seems, would be dissipat-
ed and truth and light reign supreme
throughout the land. Per contra,
free schools are in most cases the
vehicles for conveying ignorance and
disseminating it. There is more
money squandered ON the public
schools than the amount of good they
do would justify.
The average grammar CD school
graduate knows less than nothing;
he cannot read correctly, he cannot
write or speak correct English, he
cannot spell; he comes out of school
not only a physical wreck, but men
tally and morally deficient; the nat
ural faculties instead of being trained
cultivated and expanded are dwarfed,
and in consequence we have a pie
thora Of little ignorant cusses. I'm
derstand us: We are not deprecating
the use Of public funds for education,
but we do condemn the method by
which millions of dollars are useless
1y expended every year; we are not
Jumping on the public schools, but on
the modus Operandi. To paraphrase
one of Mr.. Watson's statements:
Graft and corruption ramify every
branch of public activity" There is
no one branch more corrupt or where
graft is more rampant than in our
public schools.
There are school trusts and book
trusts They exist among US Just
as the steel and sugar trusts, but un-
like the latter, they exert a two
fold grip with their tentacles; they
not only seek to crush the corporeal
wealth of the commonwealth, but
they subject the minds of it's citizens
to intellectual slavery.
The municipal systems are the
most corrupt. ct may be that the
Catholics, who constitute the control
ling element in the larger cities, such
as New York or Chicago, make them
SOL And nowhere are the minds of
the people, as a mass, more i'm
mersed in medieval darkness; no.
where is such a prodical and lavish
expenditure for schools. Statistics
prove that eighty per cent. of the
children never advance further than
the third grade in the grammar
schools; these drop out because
they have to fight the grim bat
ties of life. 1t is apparent, then,
that despite all this hair-brained
chatter about universal education,
despite the Utopian dream of making