The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-01-25
DANGER TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN
IMPENDING SMITH BlLL-SUC-
CESS OF MEASURE WILL
EVENTUALLY MEAN THE ELM
NATION OF ALL SCHOOLS
WHERE A KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
is TAUGHT.

WHERE A KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
is TAUGHT.
Rev. Paul Blakely, S. j., writing in
America, points out the danger that
hangs over the parochial schools OF
this country. Father Blakely says:
Schools in Michigan. +
Bigotry dies hard in Michigan. But,
be it said to the honor of the citizens
of that great state, for several years
the legislature and the voters alike
have done their best to hasten the
day of its dissolution. Last month
the legislature again refused to pass
an amendment to the state educa-
tional law, which would compel all
children between the ages of five and
sixteen to attend the local public
school. The sole purpose of this meas
ure, urged by an anti-CathOlic group
styling itself a "Civic Association >
was, in the words of the Adrian Tel
egram, Ito abolish all church schools y
The single and abiding purpose of this
Association, according to the same
journal, is to awaken and spread relig-
ious fanaticism. Happily, the issue
in Michigan was so plain that it at
once aroused the quiet but determined
opposition of every fair-1ninded man
in the state. The Michigan bigots had
~, 4 +Lr inI
and made no secret of their plan. 1t
is usually easy to kill the snake that
wriggles across the garden path. 1t is
only the snake in the grass that is
dangerous. Nag, the cobra in Kip
ling's tale, crawled in through drain
and thereby set the fashion for nine
out of ten anti-Catholic zealots. But
occasionally, as in Michigan, the tenth
comes out in-the open, and then Rikki-
tikki-tavi, the American spirit of fair
play, easily breaks his writing back.
The Smith Bill.
Unhappily, however, the evil issue
of the Smith bill for the federaliZa-
tion of American education, now pend
ing in the senate, does not come out
in the open. 1t would be quite un-
fair to assert that Senator Smith is
moved by hatred of the private, or,
more specifically, of the parochial
school, 1t is altogether possible that
any consideration of the inevitable
effect upon the religious school of
State-controlled education has never
entered the Senator's mind. 1t is also
possible that those Catholics whom
the bill has not Jared out OF. their
customary Indifference are likewise
unaware that it WILL humanity speak
ing, make the maintenance of the pa
rOchial school burden to which even
the largest and wealthiest of our city
parishes will scarcely be equal. And
the extinction OF the parochial school
means much more than the cessation
of our educational activities. 1t
means empty churches a century
hence, and cathedrals that are vast
tombs of their former glory. Today
six out of every ten Americans have
no affiliation whatever with any kind
of religion, and there is nothing in
current public or private life which in
dicates a gradual diminution of this
irreligious majority. All indications
point the other way. Where do oul
$4,000, 200 American children, the rank
and file of the next generation, receive
religious instruction? In the home?
The cry of religious and social lead
erS is that the home is disappearing
Of course there are thousands OF rea
homes in which Christian fathers an(
mothers have a care over those o
their households; but in the average
non-Catholic family, and in too man!
of our own, religious training does no
seem to hold an honored, or even al
important, place. Father and mothel
are either too busy" or unable tt
teach the child; the public school ha:
no room for Christ, and hence this i'm
portant task, if not wholly neglected
is thrust upon the Sunday school. 0
this forlorn institution, our Protestan
brethren themselves are the mos
caustic critics. The schools are rep
resented as conducted by superinten
dents and teachers whose good inten
tions and pedagogical Incompetence
are equally undoubted. AS a resul
the typical non-Catholic child regard
Sunday school as curious survival o
the Puritan Sabbath, and finds his sol
source of religious education a bor
and nuisance, thing to be shunne
except for its temporal rewards.
religion that is a penalty does not &c