The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-06-21

i All that is desired is that some
suitable plan be adopted which shall
combine, for Catholic children, with
ordinary secular education, a fair
amount of Catholic religious instruc-
ton. Precisely this same privilege
we would wish extended to any other
creed, Protestant or Hebrew, caring
to profit by it.
All of this, be it observed, is be-
yond or beside the issue of intrinsic
merit between the two systems OF
education, sectarian and nonsectarian.
Cardinal Gibbons voices Catholic
sentiment when he expresses the be-
lief that unsectarian education tends
to undermine faith in the Divinity OF
Christ, in revelation, in the necessity
of organized and concerted religion,
in church authority and in various
other fundamental dogmas of our
faith. Surely it will not be disputed
that the child who, with his arith-
metic and grammar, has had year
after year a fair amount Of cate
chism and other religious instruction,
must grow up understanding the
tenets of his church, and be better
disposed and prepared in after life
to uphold and defend them.
Be Catholics right or wrong upon
these issues, the fact has no rightful
bearing upon the other question,
whether, this being a free country,
the wishes of Catholic parents should
not be respected in matter relat-
ing to the rearing of their own prog
eny, unless there can be pointed out
some manifest resultant danger to
the Commonwealth, or some injustice
to their fellow-citizens. We merely
ask that, in republican America, we
be granted the rights which are not
denied us by monarchial England and
in imperial Germany.
The objection that UNCONVENTIONAL
schools are inferior to nOnSectar1an
ones is futile. 1t is unsupported by
facts. There are efficient public
schools and efficient UNCONVENTIONAL
ones; also inferior public schools and
inferior sectarian ones. We can, on
this widespread issue of fact, form
an opinion to suit ourselves, by sort
ing out our data; bringing, in other
words, into comparison the weak Of
one system with the strong of the
other. We have, in our files, refer
ences enough to more than fill a small
volume, if we chose to present them,
going to show remarkably favorable
/ To4hn1in Cahnn1c hoh in
certain public examinations and COM
petitions, and unsatisfactory show
ings, in others, made by pupils of
nonsectarian schools
But, even were it demonstrate that
Catholic schools are, on the whole,
inferior in this country to public ones,
to whom should the blame for this
be laid, more than to those who are
so strongly resisting every effort to
secure for our schools some part, how
ever small, of public assistance, and
who uphold a system which takes
from Catholics their full share of pub
lie taxes for education, and forces
them at the same time in the effort
to satisfy their consciences, to go
deeper into their pockets for the funds
wherewith to build schoolhouses and
maintain the teachers necessary for
the education of 100000 Catholic
children?
How inconsistent are they who, with
one breath, maintain that Catholics
are too deficient to be trusted with
the education of their own offspring,
and with the next proclaim that, If so
poor a boon be granted, as we are
demanding, the upshot must be that
Catholics will rout out every other
element and take possession of the
public school machinery of the coun-
try. And this by many who are be-
levers in the survival of the f1ttest!
AS matter of fact, this contention
is double insult; as deadly against
the non-Catholic majority of this ma,
ton as against the Catholic minority.
Against us it intimates that we are
a lot of knaves and scoundrels;
against our separated brethren it adj
vances the charge that they are in.
competents, idiots.
:: If the citizens of Germany, for ex
ample, have been wise enough to solve
this great problem so as to satisfy
Catholics, and yet not endanger the
Empire, what obstacle stands legiti
mately in the way of accomplishing
similar result in this great land Of
liberty and of enlightenment? Are
the people of America different from
or in any wise less capable than are
say the Germans?